Africa-Press – Mauritius. The Speaker of the National Assembly of Mauritius, Mr Sooroojdev Phokeer, intervened, today, at the 144th Inter Parliamentary Union Assembly, which is being held from 20 to 24 March 2022 in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia. The theme focuses on Getting to Zero: Mobilizing parliaments to act on climate change
In his address, the Speaker highlighted that climate change remains one of the most critical global challenges adding that the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the global socio-economic outlook of Small Island Developing States, confronting them with more complex development challenges.
Mr Phokeer dwelt on the country’s commitment to protect the planet from degradation, through sustainable consumption and production and taking urgent actions on climate change to support the needs of the present and the future generations.
Mauritius, he added, aims to create a green energy industry as an important economic pillar and promote an eco-friendly human development. He further pointed out that the country has made concrete efforts to mitigate Greenhouse Gas emission by integrating climate change issues into new development strategies will further enhance existing policies and develop resilience.
The Speaker affirmed that climate change remains a high-priority on government’s agenda and Mauritius is determined to fulfill its obligations under climate-related multilateral agreements.
“Mauritius spent some $ 150 million USD in support of its climate agenda in the past few years”, he said.
He emphasised that the Mauritian Parliamentarians play an active role in ensuring government accountability and effectiveness with regard to tackling climate change.
“In 2015, the Environment Protection (Banning of Plastic Bags) Regulations were prescribed and since then, these regulations have been consolidated with the objective of reaching a complete ban on the utilisation of all types of non-biodegradable bags in the future, including the banning of single use plastic products”, he said.
Speaking on other initiatives, Mr Phokeer underlined that in November 2020, the Mauritian Parliament has enacted the Climate Change Act to consolidate the legal framework and mechanism towards making Mauritius climate change resilient and achieving a low emission economy in line with Sustainable Development Goals and the overarching Government objective of developing a greener economy.
“Since 2013, the National Assembly of Mauritius embarked on a challenging and ambitious project towards achieving a paperless Parliament”, he said, while adding that Members of Parliament are provided with a Digital Tablet to have access to a secured digital platform for their parliamentary documents.
Moreover, a Parliamentary Electronic Document Management System is being worked out with a view to creating an automated parliamentary workflow enabling stakeholders to share their documents on a common platform, thereby reducing the use of papers and to do away with the traditional mode of communication, he stated.
He called for prompt and compelling actions from all stakeholders in both mitigation and adaptation to climate change. “Let us pledge today that we will leave no stone unturned in mobilising parliaments to effectively discharge their parliamentary missions as part of their contribution in tackling this planetary emergency”, concluded Speaker Phokeer.
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