Luanda – The Vice President of the Republic, Esperança da Costa, reaffirmed Tuesday in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, Angola´s commitment in continuing to work on attracting investments in the scope of the operationalisation of the early warning systems.
This commitment also follows the postulate in Maputo Declarations on Sustainable and Integrated Management of Miombo Forests, stated Esperança da Costa while speaking at the High Level Parallel Event related to Catalysing Investments for the Operationalisation of the African Multi-Risk Prior Notice System and Anticipated and Follow-up Action of Maputo Declarations on Sustainable and Integrated Management of Miombo Forests framed in the Climate Change Conference COP27.
In her speech, Esperança da Costa also thanked the President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, for the invitation so that she could participate in this event, highlighting that COP27 marks a turning point on the African Agenda priority for climate crisis reduction and recovery from covid.
She said that in the framework of its national agenda, the Republic of Angola has focused its attention on strengthening the scientific research environment, including improving its earth observation network, by strengthening the national meteorological network, as well as developing human capital.
Regarding this, she clarified that “Angola is linked to regional initiatives and has participated in projects funded by the African Union and related to the interdisciplinary themes of this side event”.
Esperança da Costa highlighted as well projects related with the drafting of the Atlas on Reservoirs and Dams in Southern Africa (DRASA), an open base for data sharing in this field and the monitoring and assessment of Transboundary Wetlands in Southern African River Basins (WeMAST).
According to the Angolan Vice president, the country acknowledges the major consequences of climate change and greenhouse gases, as well as the vulnerabilities that create more and more accentuated disasters and events marked, hence the urgency of the crucial reflection to collectively identify the solutions and public policies which aim to reverse the current situation.
She also emphasized the fact that Angola is joining other countries that are part of the Southern African Science Services Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) initiative since 2017 of the Southern African Miombo network, whose main attribution is in the supply of scientific information and political orientation for a better future of Miombo forests in their countries of distribution with the aim of improving the benefits and human subsistence means of the Miombo forest ecosystem.
Esperança da Costa also revealed that Angola is working to comply with the Maputo Declaration always with a view to perfect alignment to promote joint, coordinated and integrated actions for recovery, management, monitoring and conservation of Miombo forests and other forest formations across the SADC region.
Energy and Green Transition in Southern Africa
Still on Tuesday, the Vice president of the Republic, Esperança da Costa, participated in the side event on “Energy and Transition - Southern Africa”, an initiative of the Tanzanian authorities.
In her speech, she said that the COP and the meetings being held in Egypt show the commitment of the African Heads of State to quickly find solutions to overcome the major vicissitudes and impacts of climate change that have devastated the continent, creating situations of vulnerability of the population, who suffer from floods and extreme droughts, which has worsened the poverty problem.
In such a way, she said that it is necessary to quickly draft new strategies and programmes to ensure food security and sustainable development in favour of the populations.
It is in this context that Angola joins the heads of State and the African Group on their commitment to reach the target of 70% of renewable energy, be it wind, photovoltaic or hydroelectric, by 2025, in the scope of the commitment assumed at the COP26, held in Glasgow, Scotland.
She reaffirmed that, in this particular regard, Angola had also been introducing renewable energy, especially in Benguela Province, which joins other initiatives that could enable Africa's rapid recovery, as well as accelerating the adaptability and resilience of our communities.
Esperança da Costa also urged private sector financial institutions and non-governmental organisations to join these African initiatives.
The UN climate conference kicked off on Sunday and runs until the 18th November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with a new warning about the global warming acceleration, whose financing of the damage to poor countries is for the first time officially on the list of debates.
Besides the big issues the Egyptian presidency of COP27 has scheduled thematic days and side events, dedicated to topics such as finance, science, youth, decarbonisation, biodiversity loss, water, agriculture or energy.
COP27, which marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, in the original acronym) basically maintains the same objectives as other summits since 2015.
