Political leadership needed to mitigate climate change

WINDHOEK, 18 Apr– Windhoek Mayor Muesee Kazapua said climate change adaptation and mitigation actions can only be successful with the involvement of political leadership.
Kazapua said this at a two-day transformational leadership workshop on climate change for City of Windhoek (CoW) officials in the capital on Wednesday.
He emphasised that CoW has heeded the global call and national responsibility to tackle climate change at a city level.
The mayor added that CoW is busy with establishing the relevant policy frameworks to coordinate their response to climate change.
“One such framework is our Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, which we intend to finalise by June this year,” he said.
Kazapua further explained that the strategy and action plan is the instrument that will guide the actions of the city in the fight against climate change for the next five to seven years.
Speaking at the same occasion, Khomas Region Governor, Laura McLeod-Katjirua echoed Kazapua’s sentiments, saying for climate change adaption and mitigation efforts to yield any fruits, commitment from political leadership at multiple levels of Government is required.
She, however, said that lack of information regarding climate change is seen by some as a critical barrier in dealing with its effects at a political level.
“It is therefore crucial that we scale up the efforts to build capacity of political leaders to effectively deal with climate change issues,” she said.
The training is facilitated by the Future Resilience for African Cities and Lands (FRACTAL).
FRACTAL is funded by the United Kingdom’s government and is part of the multi-consortia Future Climate for Africa programme which aims to generate fundamentally new climate science focused on Africa and to ensure that this science has an impact on human development across the continent.
The training will end on Thursday.
NAMPA