Africa-Press – Cape verde. Environmental protection organizations told Lusa that water management is one of the priority topics that Cape Verde should take to the United Nations climate summit (COP28), starting on Thursday, in Dubai.
“Cape Verde is a country affected by drought and desertification. We must mobilize water, but also manage it well” for human use, said Januário Nascimento, president of the Association for the Defense of the Environment and Development (ADAD).
The problem is not exclusive to Cape Verde, “it is a global issue”, he said, which he considers to be affected by the failure to fulfill financing promises, after 28 summits.
For more than a decade, the most fragile countries have been asking for support, estimated at 100 billion dollars annually, for the transition to a world with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
“From COP to COP there have been several promises, but these millions do not reach Cape Verde”, said Januário Nascimento.
The environmentalist said that there are too many meetings and too little action, arguing that climate summits “should be reduced” and held “every two years”.
The problem of water scarcity is also highlighted by the environmental association Quercus Cabo Verde.
“We have to know how to live with drought and climate change”, said Paulo Ferreira, president of the organization, to Lusa, considering that “there are no longer any excuses” for not using resources better, considering environmental education essential.
According to him, climate change is “an existential threat for the country, which faces important environmental challenges, such as water scarcity, environmental contamination and pollution, and the loss of biodiversity”.
Cape Verde’s participation in COP28 is seen by Quercus as “an important opportunity for the country to position itself as a leader in climate action”, showing, for example, how debt conversion can support climate financing – a model agreement signed this year in which Portugal forgave 12 million euros of Cape Verde’s debt to place them in the archipelago’s Environmental Climate Fund.
Januário Nascimento considered that Cape Verde has taken “important steps” to promote the energy transition, “sometimes with exaggeration”, as when he predicted to have 100% of electricity from renewable sources in 2025, he recalled, the target, however, reduced to 50 % and pushed to 2030.
“There has been a mismatch in numbers”, but “there is work done and a great effort”, because, otherwise, the energy for consumption by electric cars “is fossil energy”, generated in power plants that burn fuel.
“We have to take into account that mobilizing resources for these [renewable] areas costs a lot: we need technically well-designed projects”, he concluded.
The most recent UN report indicates that the world needs to cut 42% of emissions by 2030 to respect the 1.5°C warming ceiling, a target assumed in 2015 in the Paris Agreement on reducing emissions.
COP28 will take place between November 30th and December 12th, in Dubai, the main city of the United Arab Emirates, with the ambition of making the first global assessment of the Paris Agreement.
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