In 2007, Ethiopia announced that it pursues Climate Resilient Green Economy development and since then to realize the objectives, it has been taking various measures. Among others, as part of adaptation programs, tree planting, watersheds management, balancing ecosystem through protecting natural resources and proper waste management system have been carried out.
As part of mitigation program, developing renewable energy sources such as wind, hydro power, solar and geothermal can be mentioned in these regard. The expanding of the utilization of renewable energy sources enabled the nation to reduce the utilization of petrochemical based energy sources which have hazardous effect on the environment. It also enabled the country to save hard currency that would have been allocated for purchasing of carbon based energy.
Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy program is appreciated by various partners and stake holders because its afforestation program is supporting the international efforts in fighting climate change and global warming. The forests planted in Ethiopia plays pivotal role in sequestrating carbon emitted somewhere else in the globe.
Recently the writer of this article had an opportunity to meet the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) Deputy Director General (DDG), Ms. Helena McLeod during her weeklong business mission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Upon her arrival, she was warmly welcomed by the GGGI Ethiopia team including the Country Representative, Okechukwu Daniel Ogbonnaya. She convened a meeting with the staff members and was briefed on GGGI Ethiopia projects’ highlights, implementation status and investment opportunities in the country.
Also, Ms. Helena made an experience sharing field visit at Lume woreda of the Oromia regional state and held discussions with development agents and farmers at horticultural life project’s nursery sites and youth cooperatives at Mojjo area of the region.
Moreover, the DDG held courtesy visits and bilateral meetings with different government and development partners as well as with the AU continental body that GGGI is working with, to cement the already existing amicable cooperation, explore further potential areas of partnership, and thereby backing up the government of Ethiopia’s development priorities in pursuit of green growth and climate actions.
As to her, GGGI is working on supporting Ethiopia’s green growth plan through garnering climate finance from various stake holders. She also said that climate finance can help to tackle challenges facing the economy. It has also enough capacity to take advantage of the opportunity. In 2021 GGGI supported Peru through providing the largest sovereign green bond in the world at that point in history which was over 4 billion US Dollars and still the organization works in collaboration with 20 countries across the globe on different types of bonds such as, sustainability bond and green bond. She further said that her institute is going to use that experience and bring to Ethiopia to see whether that mechanism can bring more investment to tackle climate change and other issues.
In line with these, creating new jobs that can also benefit the economy through carbon trading is feasible. She also explained that the scheme has high potential area to bring additional funding in to the country.
The institute is also engaged in capacity building to the member countries of GGGI and works in collaboration with them. In addition, it has set up the motivation mechanisms that could go in line with the national frame works devised to receive carbon money.
She also said that GGGI works with rich countries that are buying carbon and countries that are selling carbon such as Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of the countries which sell carbon to the rich countries and the institute strives to make the carbon trading as much as fair and based on the countries interest.
According to MS. Helena, Ethiopia is one of the most beautiful countries in the world but it is also suffering from the effect of climate change and global warming. There are more extreme weather events less regular and unpredictable rain fall which has a massve impact on soil fertility and hampers growing of sufficient food.
This is a very serious situation but there are easy ways enable to mitigate the problems and enable the country to create high yield of crops and these are types of solutions the institute brought to Ethiopia with many other options.
In addition, it works with the collaboration of the government to scaling up the efforts and to benefit as much as large numbers of people. The institute also works to link up this financial instrument to be a major hope to the country through integrating to the wider economic development endeavor. Improved yield also supports the nation efforts for attaining food security to millions of people in Ethiopia rather than just thousands of people.
Side by side with these, to sustain the achievements, the ongoing conservation works will be strengthening at a very large scale.
Reflecting her view on the nation efforts to mitigate climate change through planting billions of seedlings annually through green legacy initiative she told that, Ethiopia as a country has before and now is not emitting very much carbon to the atmosphere. It is not one of the countries that caused problems on the environment and has made commitment on cut carbon emission. But the deforestation going on in Ethiopia contributes to carbon emission and affects the fertility of soil.
Therefore, tree planting program is very significant in balancing the ecosystem because it can be said as win-win game between rich and poor countries. It also absorbs carbon from the environment, create job to thousands and increase fertility of soil. It would also protect cities from flooding, global warming and keeps biodiversity from any threats.
The government ambition on tree planting is what the world is needed and it is a leading in that sense. It is also took bold measure to support tree planting efforts on the green legacy program by allocating one percent of its expenditure each year.
As to her, when she met an official from the Ethiopian Forestry Development last week he told her that, he was keen to work together on clean development mechanism /CDM/ and to take concrete action on the ground by next year. She also said that Ethiopia plays a leading role in Africa in terms of climate action for many years and GGGI is happy to support the government.
As to her tree planting has positive global effect through sequestrating carbon emitted from industrialized countries. At the same time clearing forest for various purposes in developing countries is a major contributor of carbon emission. Hence side by side with tree planting attention should be given to protecting the existing forests and to that end enforcing laws strictly is essential.
In fact, old trees are cut for forestry and other purposes but when this happen replacing the cut tree by the new one is vital.
The rich countries also have obligation that in line with buying carbon from poor countries, they should full fill their pledge to cut their carbon emission as they agreed on various climate negotiations and take serious actions. Carbon trading brings substantial money to the developing countries vital to build their capacity in mitigating climate change and import technology which support the sustainable development goals. Therefore, carbon trading can be said a win-win game between the developed and poor countries.
Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) is an international, inter-governmental organization established in 2012 (where Ethiopia is a founding member) to support developing countries in the transformation to a green economy. The projects target economic growth that is environmentally sustainable, and socially inclusive. GGGI works across four priority areas considered to be essential to transforming national economies-including sustainable energy, water and sanitation, sustainable landscapes and green cities.
BY ABEBE WOLDEGIORGIS
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 27 FEBRUARY 2024
