Namibia on Tuesday held a conference on decarbonization to discover innovative strategies to safeguard the country from the devastating impacts of climate change.
In a keynote address to various stakeholders from the Southern African Development Community in Windhoek, Namibia’s Minister of Industrialization and Trade Lucia Iipumbu said climate change is altering climatic conditions globally and as a result influencing economic production and the way of living.
“This makes decarbonization one of the most important tools and greatest challenges of the 21st century. Thus, governments around the world including Namibia committed to binding targets, to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius,” she said.
Iipumbu said achieving this goal is heavily dependent on individual nations together with their private sector players to act and work together to reduce their emissions and replace hydrocarbons with renewable power sources and climate-friendly equipment.
“Furthermore the aim is to also encourage sectoral innovation to replace carbon-emitting equipment and production models as part of the Just Transition to decarbonizing economies to ensure sustainability and future production,” she added.
Iipumbu said Namibia is committed to awareness-raising activities including regular coordination meetings with stakeholders to create an enabling environment for the outlined decarbonizing interventions.
“The Kigali Amendment sets a timeline for Parties to freeze HFC consumption in 2024 and to commence the step-down phases to progressively reduce HFCs by 2029. This means that there is a significant window of opportunity for reducing HFC emissions before 2029 and Namibia intends to exploit this mitigation potential until 2030,” she said.
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are greenhouse gases commonly used in a wide variety of applications, including refrigeration and air-conditioning. Enditem
