COP 27: Expected outcomes for Mozambique – Carta

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COP 27: Expected outcomes for Mozambique – Carta

2:33 CAT | 07 Nov 2022

For illustration purposes only. [Photo: Presidente Filipe Nyusi/Facebook]

United Nations Summit on Climate Change (COP27) will have repercussions for Mozambique, and it is with this conviction that the country participates in the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from today until Saturday (12-11).

Climate Finance

Speaking during preparatory activities aimed at agreeing positions to be defended at COP27, Mozambique’s Minister of Land and Environment, Ivete Maibaze, stressed the country’s main areas of interest are: financing in the context of climate change; the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC); Renewable Energy; Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, as well as Gender and Climate Change issues.

“The Government of Mozambique looks to COP27 as a stage on which to leverage climate finance, in order to achieve the low carbon transition in line with the NDC,” Minister Maibaze explained.

The minister also stated that Loss and Damage was a priority for the government of Mozambique, a topic for the first time placed at the top of the executive’s COP27 agenda.

READ: COP27 explainer: : What is ‘Loss and Damage’ compensation, and who should pay?

“The Mozambican Government endorses the position of the African Negotiating Group that COP27 must produce a concrete result in terms of establishing an effective financial mechanism to deal with Loss and Damage associated with climate change,” the minister added.

Mphanda Nkwa hydropower project

The Government of Mozambique also hopes its hydro assets, in particular the Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric project, will benefit from part of the US$ 8.5 billion allocated by the United Kingdom, United States of America, Germany, France and the European Union to support the Republic of South Africa in its energy transition process.

READ: Zimbabwe’s Zesa bids to build 1 500MW hydropower plant in Mozambique – report

How South Africa plans to spend $8.5 billion of climate funding – Watch

Debt-for-Climate Swaps

Finally, the third climate finance source for the Government of Mozambique are the Debt-for-Climate Swaps, whereby energy transition is financed in what is considered a low-carbon and climate-resilient country, without such support increasing indebtedness.

About COP 27

The COPs are the world’s most important annual climate-related conferences. Several world leaders, including the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi, are participating in COP27.

In 1992, the UN organised the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in which the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted and its coordinating agency – what we know now as the UN Climate Change secretariat – was put into place.

In this treaty, nations agreed to “stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent dangerous interference from human activity on the climate system”. So far, 197 different parties have signed it.

Since 1994, when the treaty entered into force, the UN has every year brought together almost every country on earth for global climate summits or ‘COPs’, which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’.

During these meetings, nations have negotiated various extensions of the original treaty to establish legally binding limits on emissions, such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, in which all signatories agreed to step up efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures, and boost climate action financing.

This year marks the 27th annual summit, COP27.