Assessing Ethiopian Climate Change Mitigation Efforts

Climate Change in Ethiopia in Light of Statements at the UN Climate Summit
By Bereket Gebru

If there was ever a single point of focus for international politics, it would be in New York in the last couple of weeks. The two weeks from mid September to the beginning of October, 2014 saw over 130 heads of states and governments congregate in New York for the 69th General Assembly (GA) meeting of the United Nations (UN).

Although the GA meeting was the main reason for the international get together, the opportunity was used to deliberate on other pressing issues on international, regional and bilateral levels. Accordingly, numerous topics were deliberated on between heads of states and governments of participating nations. The most notable international meeting held during this period is the Climate Summit 2014.

Climate Summit 2014 was a gathering of world leaders convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on September 23, 2014. While not a formal part of the UN climate negotiations, the summit was organized to “raise political momentum for a meaningful universal climate agreement in Paris in 2015 and to galvanize transformative action in all countries to reduce emissions and build resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change.” An unprecedented number of over 120 heads of states and governments along with over 800 leaders of business, finance and civil society were in attendance of the summit.
At the end of the Summit, world leaders came up with wide ranging statements on a comprehensive global vision on climate change. During his attendance of the summit, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn delivered a national statement at the UN Climate Summit. This article intends to analyze the correlation between the efforts of Ethiopia towards mitigating the harsh effects of climate change and some of the statements world leaders announced at the end of the summit with a view to pinpoint how far along the country has gone in that section.

The first statement presented in Ban Ki-moon’s summary of announcements by world leaders states that they “agreed that climate change is a defining issue of our time and that bold action is needed today to reduce emissions and build resilience and that they would lead this effort.” The second statement also deals with a related note and states: “leaders acknowledged that climate action should be undertaken within the context of efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and promote sustainable development.”

Cognizant of the need to accord climate the utmost attention it deserves in today’s plans for the future, the Ethiopian government sprung to action and designed detailed strategies and policies to reduce emissions and build resilience. In line with the second statement, the strategies and policies designed were associated with the country’s plan to eradicate extreme poverty and promote sustainable development.

The Ethiopian strategy aimed at mitigating climate change related problems while striving towards sustainable development is called the Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy and it was formulated back in 2011. The first two paragraphs of the foreword on the strategy document put by the then Prime Minister Meles Zenawi clearly denote this fact:

“For Ethiopia, green growth is a necessity as well as an opportunity to be seized. It is an opportunity to realize our country’s huge potential in renewable energy and a necessity so as to arrest agro-ecological degradation that threatens to trap millions of our citizens in poverty. We have therefore embarked upon the development of a Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy addressing both climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives. We have now completed the preparation of the green economy strategy, which will be fully integrated into our five-year Growth and Transformation Plan. Our goal is quickly to improve the living conditions of our people by reaching a middle-income status by 2025 based on carbon-neutral growth.”

As foreseen by the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia has embarked on a low-carbon growth path since 2013. The speech by his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn, at the summit also clearly showed Ethiopia’s approach of the issue of climate change in light of the need for sustainable development.

The Prime Minister noted that the country had set a long-term national vision of ensuring its renaissance as well as a medium-term goal to become a middle-income country by 2025. To achieve this, he noted, it had rejected the conventional business-as-usual path of development in favour of building a green climate-resilient middle-income economy with zero-net carbon dioxide emission. The Prime Minister said economic growth had historically been associated with increased emissions of greenhouse gases but Ethiopia had been working for continued double-digit economic growth without increasing emissions, rather indeed reducing them.
Another statement by the leaders dealing with cutting emissions states that “many leaders, from all regions and all levels of economic development advocated for a peak in greenhouse gas emissions before 2020, dramatically reduced emissions thereafter, and climate neutrality in the second half of the century.”

The projected international goal, as stated above, is to achieve carbon neutrality in the second half of the century. As stated in the Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy of 2011, Ethiopia aims to achieve carbon-neutral middle-income status before 2025. As set forth in the national Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), this leap will require increasing agricultural productivity, strengthening the industrial base, and fostering export growth. Economically, it means growing fast enough to increase the current gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of around USD 380 to USD 1,000 (the lower threshold of middle-income status), decreasing the share of GDP contributed by agriculture from more than 40% to less than 30%, and migrating from farming and herding to jobs in the services and industry sectors.

In a bold and ambitious move, Ethiopia has set itself lofty goals towards achieving rapid development in the face of decreasing emissions that would culminate in a carbon neutral economy by as recently as 2025. This humongous task precedes the international bench mark for carbon neutrality by a whole generation.
Another one of the statements by world leaders incorporated in the secretary-general’s summary states that the transport sector brought substantial emissions reduction commitments linked to trains, public transportation, freight, aviation and electric cars.

Source: Tigraionline