By Silindzelwe Nxumalo
In a bid to enhance national coordination of climate change action in the country, the government is currently in the process of formulating the National Climate Change Bill. This was disclosed by the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs Director of Meteorology Dudu Nhlengwetfwa-Masina, who was represented by Bafana Simelane during the opening ceremony of the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT)workshop held at Hilton Garden Inn on Tuesday.
She said the country had taken strides in climate action including formulation of the necessary policy framework which is the National Climate Change Policy and the National Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan which was approved by the cabinet in 2016.
The Director said the government had also submitted three national communications to the conference of parties of the UNFCCC, and they were currently finalizing the Fourth National Communication and First Biennial Update report. “Our focus under the fourth national communication and the first biennial update report is to strengthen institutional arrangements to meet the reporting requirements of the enhanced transparency framework,” she said.
She stated that they had also revised their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) document and developed the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) and Initial Adaptation and Communication. She added that they had several readiness projects including the Green Climate Fund support project and the Africa Climate Change Fund Readiness project.
The Director also noted that the country had not been spared from the frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters all over the world, and was being hit in an unprecedented manner, affecting every economic sector, and crippling the economy at large.
She said this meant that it was the country’s priority that climate change was addressed accordingly, ensuring that the overall country’s resilience was strengthened, while they contribute to the global mitigation target and temperature goal.
The director said that climate change was real and impacted all aspects of life and livelihoods. She stated that not only was it threatening food security and increasing the likelihood, recurrence, and intensity of climate and weather-related disasters, it was already undermining their preparedness and response capacities, as well as the overall resilience of their life support systems, including agriculture, health, water, and infrastructure.
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She added that as the ministry they recognize the importance of tracking the progress of all climate action at national, regional, cities, and businesses which would help to inform better decision-making and unlock the benefits of climate action commitments.
“As government, our aim is to create a common framework and system for tracking progress that looks at targets, ambition, outputs, and outcomes to align with the Paris Agreement,” said the director. She explained that for this purpose, the project being launched aimed at collaborating with all stakeholders to produce a robust MRV system to track and identify indicators of progress for credible climate actions.
“It is also going to build the much-needed technical and institutional capacities to enhance monitoring and reporting of all climate action,” she said. She stated that monitoring and reporting was a key element of effective national and international climate action which could be achieved through robust and carefully constructed MRV systems.
She said in addition to data on GHG emissions and mitigation activities, national transparency systems should also collect other relevant data, such as information on climate resilience and adaptation to climate change, international support received, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Our National Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) systems should therefore be structured in such a way that it does not only support international reporting to the Paris Agreement but also meet national requirements in order to facilitate well-founded decisions at the political level,” said the director.
