Vulnerable Are Most At Risk

Irene !hoaës

26 May 2011

Windhoek — The Minister of Environment and Tourism, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, says countries need to have adaptation strategies in place to ensure the most vulnerable community members are assisted.

In a speech read on her behalf at the Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Training this week, Nandi-Ndaitwah said such assistance might include accessing energy, developing sustainable agricultural practices, increasing food security and reducing the risks affecting recreation and tourism transportation.

Representatives from Namibia, Botswana and South Africa met in Windhoek for a follow-up training course after initial training in Sweden last year.

“We are all concerned about the impact on society from the change in climate. We know such change in general is expected to make dry regions drier, warm regions even warmer and flood-prone regions even more problematic,” she said.

Weather and climate related disasters would have a negative economic and social impact hence the need to forge partnerships with especially communities and other stakeholders.

The minister said the workshop is important because it would give the three countries an opportunity to assess their capacities to deal with ever-growing challenges caused by climate change.

“You must therefore merge this workshop with practical approaches in dealing with those problems to enable you to fit into the overall national policy developments and implementation,” Nandi-Ndaitwah advised.

According to international climate predictions, the impact of climate change would exacerbate the already prevailing difficult climatic conditions, while increasing aridity as well as making climate increasingly variable.

During the past few years, Namibia has been facing both flooding and drought.

Such events might become more severe in future as a result of climate change.

Evidence of the climate change predictions can be witnessed in Cape Town South Africa, where only about one millimeter of rain has fallen so far this year.

Cape Town academic, Dr Peter Johnston, said there lots of things can be done to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

“We got to adjust our policy, our behaviour, our technology, because the consequences are going to be quite severe,” Johnston added.

He said the economic and social costs would escalate, as a two to three degree Celsius warming would cost each and every country dearly.

“Five to ten percent increase is going to include five to ten percent loss of current capita to GDP and other things are also going to be impacted upon,” he stated, adding the costs of mitigation would be small compared to eventual social and economic consequences if nothing is done.

Mitigation strategies include the reduction of carbon dioxide, reduction on energy dependency, the protection of forests, amongst others.

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