Being party to the 2015 Paris Agreement a global framework for limiting climate-damaging gases Malawi was scheduled to submit her revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat this December.
However, the Ministry of Forestry and Natural Resources authorities say the document will be ready by Match next year.
NDCs outline country-level climate actions to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change and Malawi has just commenced consultation processes starting with district councils.
According to Malawi’s chief climate change negotiator, Evans Njewa, who is also the chief environmental officer (Climate Change) in the ministry said the delay in submitting the revised NDCs to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As you know Covid-19 paralysed business in all sectors and because of that, we could not conduct consultation meetings so that the new NDCs reflects the will of the people.
Feedback from the current NDCs show that some key stakeholders were not consulted and we do not want to repeat the same mistake,” he said.
Njewa said all the councils in the South and Eastern region have been consulted and have provided vital input which will inform the design of climate adaptation programmes that can be owned and sustained by local structures.
He also disclosed that civil society organisations, the private sector, youth and other groups of interest will be consulted.
The current set of NDCs will run up to 2040 but are subject to review after every five years.
Asked to highlight key achievements that have come as a result of implementing the NDCs Njewa said a comprehensive assessment is yet to be done.
Meanwhile, climate resilience advocates say the government’s move is a step in the right direction but have warned further delays will see the country losing out on key funding opportunities to implement the commitments.
Civil Society Network on Climate Change (Cisonecc) national coordinator Julius Ng’oma said the current NDCs were not realistic, lacked clarity and ambition in terms of targets and on how the set targets of reducing emissions were to be achieved.
“We are likely to miss out on consideration of support from the international community towards the implementation of the same. Our NDCs will always have the element of unconditional support which developed countries are obliged to meet.
However, the delay may mean developed countries would prioritise developing countries which may submit their NDCs earlier.
