Africa-Press – Angola. Angola reaffirmed its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a further 14 percent by 2025, using renewable energy sources.
According to deputy Pedro Sebastião, president of the National Monitoring Group for Regional Parliamentary Organizations, Angola currently contributes 0.21 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a level already considered low.
Even though its Nationally Determined Contribution (CND) is low, the country has committed to further reducing emissions, explained Pedro Sebastião, Thursday, at the 14th session of the Plenary Assembly of the Parliamentary Forum of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (FP-CIRGL), in Livingstone, Zambia.
Speaking on behalf of the President of the Angolan Parliament, Carolina Cerqueira, the deputy spoke about “The role of Parliament in adapting to climate change in the Great Lakes region”.
He said Angola’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions currently come from the oil and gas sector (mainly fugitive methane emissions and gas flaring), followed by emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land uses. (AFOLU).
As a measure to resolve this global problem, the deputy reported that the State has included policies for greater expansion of renewable energy, removal of fuel subsidies to promote a more rational use of fuel and efficiency in transport.
Likewise, Angola adopted measures to reduce emissions from agriculture, reversing land degradation and deforestation.
Pedro Sebastião also highlighted the Government’s investments in renewable energy, such as solar, wind and especially hydro energy, as Angola has a large energy generation capacity.
He detailed that the country’s water capacity quadrupled in just a decade, and in 2020, total domestic energy production in Angola was 13,991 GWh, 88.5 percent of which came from hydroelectric energy, in addition to the solar and wind potential of Angola is also very strong.
To this end, he said that a partnership has already been established with international companies to develop seven grid-based solar photovoltaic plants that will add a total installed capacity of 370 MW.
In the international framework, he continued, the country joined the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Combating Desertification as well as ratified the Paris Agreement, which aims to strengthen the global response to the threats of climate change.
In the national context, he made it known that the Angolan Government has invested in fundamental and transversal reforms of policies and institutions, having placed the issue of climate change as a transversal concern in its Long-Term Strategic Development Plan for 2025.
Still considering the country’s vulnerability to climate change and its harmful effects, the National Strategy for Climate Change 2022-2035 was approved by presidential decree, taking into account environmental protection and the sustainable use of natural resources.
Pedro Sebastião also informed African parliamentarians that, to improve communication mechanisms on national and accounting records of greenhouse gas emissions, the National Climate Policy Monitoring, Reporting and Verification System was institutionalized in January 2022.
At the parliamentary level, he stressed that the Angolan hemicycle has looked at climate change, recognizing the climate emergency, ecological balance and combating climate change with the approval of mechanisms on policies and actions to adapt to the harmful effects of climate change.
The 14th Ordinary Session of the FP-CIRGL Plenary Assembly has been analyzing, since Wednesday, the political, security and humanitarian situation in the region, with a focus on conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in the Central Republic African and South Sudan.
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