Namibia: Africa Needs Urgent Climate Finance

On Monday, Namibia's Minister of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, stressed the pressing urgency of addressing the adverse effects of climate change across the continent.

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Speaking at the Green Climate Fund's Regional Dialogue with Africa in Namibia's capital Windhoek, Shifeta said that while climate change adaptation is a top priority, the funding available for these efforts falls far short of what is needed.

According to official data, the Green Climate Fund is a global financial mechanism established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to provide financial support to developing countries for both mitigating and adapting to climate change.

In addition, Shifeta stressed the vital role of developed countries in delivering on their climate and development finance pledges, urging them to fulfill commitments to double adaptation finance, with a particular focus on support for Africa. 

Shifeta said that African countries have outlined bold aspirations to build climate-resilient and low-carbon economies in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement. Many of these commitments, however, are conditional upon receiving adequate financial, technical, and capacity-building support.

"Climate finance is critical for enabling Africa to adapt to the growing impacts of climate change and to ensure that its future development path is consistent with the goal of limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius," he said.

According to the minister, public finance alone will not be sufficient, given the scale of investments needed and the current and future constraints on domestic public resources in Africa. He said that the private sector has significant potential to meet Africa's climate finance needs.

In this regard, he noted that to mobilize private finance, public actors need to improve policy frameworks and investment environments while deploying concessional finance to address barriers to investment.