Climate change gatecrashes party of the century
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday September 28, 2016 16:14
On Friday, the country stands still. As the world looks on, Botswana will put on the party of the century, proudly displaying its miraculous transformation from an undeveloped, agrarian community, to a modern, progressive nation that regularly tops the various global development indicators published annually.
The story that began on the afternoon of April 19, 1967 with Manfred Marx’ discovery of the first piece of diamond-bearing rock from what is now known as the Orapa diamond mine, has amazed the continent and the world for five decades.
The diamond miracle of the 1960s, joining onto the copper and nickel operations at BCL Mine, stirred a socio-economic metamorphosis that spawned industries such as financial services, manufacturing and others, while prudent foresight saw the creation of the Pula Fund, fiscal rules and government institutions to ensure lasting benefits for future generations.
The figures behind the success story are staggering and are immune from the tedium associated with frequent retelling.
From the now famous story of only five kilometres of railway at Independence, by 1980 the country’s railway lines were transporting three million tonnes of cargo annually.
Last week, Botswana Railways debuted its new sleeper coach on the transformed BR Express, which on Friday will carry hundreds along the main north-south route, for the party of the century.
Prior to Independence, the aviation industry was dominated by private, small craft over the tourism heartland in the northwest and later, military endeavours. By 1980, international and domestic passengers to and out of Botswana amounted to 137,735 and by 2014, were measured at 755,721.
From a nominal Gross Domestic Product of P36.8 million in 1966, 2015 nominal GDP was estimated at P146 billion while exports over the same period rose from P10.8 million to P63.4 billion.
The figures are endless, and include the explosion in the vehicle population from 4,302 in 1966, to 2014s 435,750!
As the country celebrates the achievements over the past 50-years, experts continue warning that the next five decades will be the most difficult in terms of climate change.
As bottles uncork, glasses clink and fireworks flitter in the skies on Friday, the minds of many policymakers will be on the gatecrasher to the party that is climate change, an existential threat experts argue is greater than the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1990s.
In preparation for the next five decades, fiscal and monetary authorities – at the highest level – are strategising around the country’s next growth engines, in light of declining diamond reserves and the looming end of life for BCL and Tati.
New diversified mines, a stronger more independent non-mining sector and vibrant services sector, as well as a move towards a knowledge society are expected to underpin growth in the next five decades.
However, what will undo those preparations are the effects of climate change, which made themselves felt recently in two successive droughts accompanied by six heatwaves and Botswana’s first international appeal for donor relief in years.
Climate change, the sinister change in weather over the centuries due to pollution of the atmosphere, is to blame for longer droughts, changes in rainfall patterns, frequent heatwaves and outbreaks of crop diseases.
Its ultimate threat is to food security, where the crisis will quickly exceed government and donors’ ability to respond.
“Those who suffer the most are those who are contributing the least to causing it; the poor and most vulnerable members of our society,” says Environment, Wildlife and Tourism Minister, Tshekedi Khama.
Botswana sits in a zone that will be hardest hit by climate change, an ironic situation as the country and its continental peers are least to blame for climate change, being low emitters of the harmful greenhouse gases.
Meteorological Services director, Thabang Botshoma expects temperatures in the country to go up by up to eight degrees Celsius in the coming years.
Last year, the country recorded its hottest ever temperature of 44 degrees Celsius, but Botshoma says this will look like a breeze in a few years to come.
“I suspect we may not even need pans and stoves to fry our eggs, we will just put them in the sun,” Botshoma says.
“We do 50-to-100 year projections on climate change and we are seeing that there will be temperature increases and changes in rainfall.
“We are geographically disadvantaged because we are surrounded by large water bodies.
The oceans have more (heat) memory than land and take a long time to release heat back.”
Despite being a low emitter of the harmful gases, the impact of climate change on Botswana will be massive.
“Climate change has a far-reaching impact on social and economic sectors, and this has not yet been quantified and factored into the country’s economic projections.
“The implication is on the country’s developmental outcomes, whether they are social, economic or environmental.
“For example, Botswana is already experiencing the bulk of these impacts, and it will have consequences on the country’s efforts to grow beyond middle income country status,” UNDP deputy resident representative, Lare Sisay told Mmegi in a previous interview.
Even though it is not the culprit, Botswana has committed to achieving an overall emissions reduction of 15% by 2030.
According to available documents, government estimates that to achieve the set target of reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 15%, Botswana will need approximately $18.4 billion (P191.4 billion).
Kitso Mokaila, the former Environment Minister, now with four years at the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, is particularly unimpressed about how the biggest culprits in global climate change have also been the slowest movers in availing funds to alleviate it.
Mokaila’s two most recent ministerial postings have given him experience uniquely suited to climate change. His current Ministry is the focal point of climate change interventions with coal being Botswana’s biggest greenhouse gas, electricity the biggest opportunity to curb emissions and water the resource most at risk to climate change.
In his eight years as Environment Minister, Mokaila remembers the frustration of securing meaningful action to address climate change at the annual Conference of the Parties (CoP), which began in the mid-1990s based on a UN convention on climate change.
“As Environment Minister, I went to these CoPs for years and they were all the same; talk shops about agreeing to agree and then nothing.
“We already understand why we are where we are and what’s necessary to make sure we don’t get further into the mess.
“What’s the measure of success from the last CoP? What is needed is real action, not promises.
“We have been talking about the Green Fund, since I don’t even know when. These are the harsh realities.”
Botswana is hoping the $18.4 billion needed for its commitments will come from the Green Fund, the long awaited $100 billion global purse to be funded largely by the biggest greenhouse polluters, towards the effects of climate change in developing countries.
The biggest polluters are developed countries, particularly the US and China.
“Article 19 of CoP21 talks about finance and another talks about technology transfer and capacity building. These are issues we have been talking about since I joined the Environment Ministry in 2004.“As an African, if you come and say ‘I want money’ they say you are a beggar, but if you say ‘I will do it for myself’, they say you are a polluter. It’s a dilemma.
“Developed nations got to where they are by polluting and we are not saying that’s good. We are saying help us cross the Rubicon. Capacitate us, give us the funds and transfer the technology.”
In mining, the coming five decades will revolve around the 212 billion tonnes of coal reserves Botswana has, with the approved Coal Roadmap forecasting billions of Pula in revenue from electricity generation, exports and beneficiation.
“We must not pay lipservice to these issues. If we want to use coal, we need technology to clean it.
“There’s a cost there and the burden will fall on Batswana.
“As long as developing countries have their backs to the wall without technology transfer, capacity building and funding, there will be no movement on this matter.”
When Botswana celebrates its 100th anniversary, what the landscape looks like will be determined by a variety of factors, from the Green Fund, to interventions and adaptation. The official climate change policy is still making its way through the approval processes.“The draft has been finalised and it’s now undergoing the approval process,” Botshoma says.
“It has gone through ministerial approval and the next stage is to meet the parliamentary committee to have an input, then an inter-ministerial committee, before finally, cabinet.
“We are targeting the November sitting of Parliament for final approval.”The light in the tunnel will be a combination of funding and behaviour change by developed countries, and adaptation by developing countries.“It’s too late to stop global warming, but we can keep it within limits that can allow the system to be stable,” says European Union head of delegation, Alexander Baum.“We all are maybe the last generation to have a choice in terms of climate change.”