Mozambique is investing about $11 million in a plan to combat climate change under a SADC program that has adopted an action plan that will run from 2022 to 2025, said Ivete Maibaze, minister of earth and environment.
Speaking at the first Mozambique Conference for Climate Resilience and Development, on Wednesday, 9, in Maputo, Maibaze said that the said plan foresees the creation of the Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre, which will operate in the city of Nacala-Porto, in Nampula.
“This is a unique initiative in Africa, which aims to bring greater integration to emergency operations,” Maibaze said.
Experts say that Mozambique is especially vulnerable to the effects of Climate Change due to its geographical location, in the inter-tropical convergence zone and downstream of shared river basins, long coastline and the existence of extensive areas at altitude below the current sea level.
In its response, the Maputo government has the support of the United Nations, whose coordinator in Mozambique, Myrta Kaulaud, said that sustainable management of the environment can contribute more than 17% to the country’s GDP.
“Sustainable management of natural resources, proper governance, equitable benefit sharing can exponentially expand real social and economic benefits,” Kaulaud said.
For his part Antonio Sánchez-Benedito Gaspar, European Union Ambassador to Mozambique, considered that the covid-19 pandemic cannot be a reason to neglect environmental problems.
“At a time when we have several overlapping social crises (…) we think that the current Covid-19 crisis should not make us forget the crisis that is probably the existential threat to humanity, climate change, which has serious consequences and implications,” recalled the diplomat.
The most visible impact of climate change is seen in the oceans, said environmental activist Regina Charrumar, who called for more real action, given that “about 60% of the population lives on fishing or has some relation to this activity.”
“If we have polluted seas and oceans, we will have less fish, less source of income, less food, less health; our source of life or survival is the oceans, if we take care (…) we will have more health and more life,” Charrumar warned.
