Namibia Signs Paris Agreement on Climate Change

H.E Dr. Hage G. Geingob, President of the Republic of Namibia signed the Paris Agreement on behalf of Namibia at the signing ceremony at the U.N head Quarters in New York Yesterday (22 April 2016). A historic total of 171 Members signed the agreement on the same day. It is for the first time that the United Nations receives such a big number of signatories on the 1st day.

I believe this agreement will help us as a country to tackle the challenges of climate change and to capitalize on opportunities that will lead to sustainable development of our nation.

Furthermore, we are excited as Namibia to be part of this journey where as we pledged to play our part to reduce gas emmissions by 89% by 2030 as stipulated in our Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) document we submitted to the UNFCCC in 2015.

I am sure that all of us will agree that tackling the issue of climate change is crucial for Namibia condsidering how vulnerable our country is to climate change.

The Paris Agreement commits developed countries to take the lead in scaling up financial support for tackling climate change in developing countries.

In this regard, Namibia being a signatory to the Paris Agreement it has an opportunity to access such funding through institutions like recently operationalized Green Climate Fund.

The fund will assit the country is tackling climate change related challenges such as water insecurity; food insecurity and energy insecurity.