Africa-Press – Namibia. ALKA BHATIA
NAMIBIA HAS, THROUGH its nationally determined contribution (NDC), committed to combating climate change and accelerating the transition to a climate-resilient and low-carbon sustainable development.
In line with this commitment, Namibia’s updated NDC seeks to achieve 91% mitigation targets from the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario.
Carbon markets are fast becoming one of the policy tools used globally to accelerate low carbon development.
Carbon markets are usually referred to as the sale and purchase of carbon credits by participating parties, such as a host country and a recipient country or entity, in exchange for carbon revenue.
One tradable carbon credit equals one tonne of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent amount of a different greenhouse gas reduced, sequestered or avoided.
According to the 2022 report by the International Carbon Action Partnership (Icap), domestic carbon markets have generated more than US$161 billion in auction revenue worldwide.
This carbon revenue is needed to address existential threats of climate change, and will also play a significant role in the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Develpoment Goals (SDGs) – especially for developing countries.
THE OPPORTUNITIES
Over US$5 billion is required for the implementation of Namibia’s bold climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Of this estimated amount, about 90% of the financing is expected to come from international public and private sector sources.
Carbon markets thus has the potential to crowd in large-scale investment to meet the conditional commitment of Namibia’s NDC.
Carbon markets can bring not only additional public and private climate finance, but it can bring down greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Namibia as a host country of carbon projects.
Apart from the GHG emission reduction and additional financing, these carbon projects also have sustainable development benefits derived from the implementation of mitigation activities.
It is for this reason I commend the government of Namibia, especially the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, for the bold initiative to participate in carbon markets.
HOW TO DO IT
The Paris Agreement recognises that countries would like to pursue voluntary cooperation through cooperative approaches under Article 6,2 and other sustainable development mechanisms under Article 6,4 in the implementation of their climate commitments to allow for higher ambition in their mitigation actions.
With funding support from the government of Japan, the UNDP has initiated targeted technical assistance and capacity building support for carbon finance readiness to access and fully benefit from carbon markets by Namibia.
The implementation of the carbon market would require Namibia to put in place key building blocks such as a robust carbon-market policy framework, carbon-market process flows, including authorisation processes, the issuance of emission credits, the establishment of transparent national emission registries, as well as capacity building initiatives for both public and private actors.
These building blocks would help the government operationalise Article 6 by successfully authorising carbon-market projects and issuing carbon credits for international transfer, and receiving carbon revenue from buyers, including administrative share of proceeds and adaptation fees. For communities and investors, it means to benefit from all SDG impact projects generated beyond mitigation outcomes, including more jobs, healthier air, cleaner water, greener transportation, and more.
A key component of the UNDP’s support would involve the training of a coalition of national experts involving government stakeholders, the private sector, and academia.
With this pool of experts, Namibia would be able to demonstrate leadership in the region and become a front-runner in the operationalisation of carbon markets.
The operationalisation of carbon markets would require the early involvement of key stakeholders.
I therefore call for strong partnerships to enable Namibia to successfully achieve verifiable mitigation outcomes within this NDC cycle.
*Alka Bhatia is the United Nations Development Programme’s resident representative.
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