Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Paris Agreement, which is a binding international treaty on climate change that was adopted by 196 Parties, Lesotho included, in Paris, France on 12 December 2015 has yielded fruitful results.
The agreement was anticipated to take 5 years (2015-2020) to meet conditions for entry into force and the plan was that during these 5 years, parties will work on implementation modalities and guidelines.
With the Paris Agreement, leaders from around the world collectively agreed that climate change is driven by human behavior, that it is a threat to the environment and all of humanity and that global action is needed to stop
it. In an interview with Informative Newspaper, Lesotho Meteorological Services (LMS) acting Director, Mokoena France revealed that the Paris Agreement is technically not yet implemented due to delays in finalizing
modalities for implementation at Conference of the Parties (COP26) in 2020 which was postponed to November 2021 due to Covid-19. France said, “However, Lesotho did not wait until all the required
modalities and guiding tools are complete and adopted. During this time the country has among other things updated Nationally Determined Contributions
(NDC), developed National Climate Change Policy and Implementation Strategy,
developed Sustainable Energy Strategy, mainstreamed climate change into the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP II) and initiated development of climate
change bill. ” The acting Director also disclosed that one of the goals of this agreement is to increase the ability of the country to adapt to the adverse
impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development in a manner that does not threaten food production.
He concluded by specifying that the National Climate Change Communications Strategy’s consultations are completed and write-up is towards completion. Afterwards, the strategy will be validated and then adopted.
One of the youth who is a Climate Change Activist and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Advocate, Letsatsi Lekhooa indicated that Climate Education must reach everyone and the Paris Agreement should also be clearly understood
by everyone including the vulnerable community. He said as we continue to fight Covid-19 pandemic, dealing with climate change should not be forgotten as it is
a national concern. “The Paris Agreement is a milestone in the joint climate change process because it is a binding agreement that brings all nations into a common
cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects,” Lekhooa said. The next Conference of the Parties (COP) is scheduled for November
2021 in Glasgow. The aims of COP26 will be to assess the progress made under the Paris Agreement and to encourage countries to enhance their original Nationally Determined Contributions into greater alignment with current climate science.
