Title of paper

3. Priority areas for action taking

Action taking is possible through both adaptation and mitigation measures.

3.1 Action taking through adaptation measures

Adaptation to climate change is more relevant to developing countries than mitigation. A developing country such as Namibia has only low capacity to address climate change through mitigation measures. This is already due to the fact that Namibia is a carbon sink for greenhouse gases.
In Namibia, adaptation has largely focused on the agriculture and livestock sector. A number of initiatives have been promoted which considerably overlap with efforts to reduce land degradation (GRN, 2012: 52).

These initiatives included a pearl millet breeding programme by the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry. It provided farmers with fast maturing crop varieties, which offer higher average rain yields and have a greater probability of harvest during years of low rainfall.

Conservation agriculture, drip irrigation, the promotion of indigenous breeds such as the Sanga cattle that are known to be better adapted to climatic variability and a host of other livelihood diversification options such as guinea fowl rearing, bee-keeping for honey production, jam production and hat harvesting of indigenous plants have been tried as adaptation measures in the past.

Some of these initiatives have been carried out on a pilot basis with support from donor agencies and might be replicated on larger scale.

3.2 Action taking through awareness raising

Action taking is not only possible on government level but can also come from grassroots level. Before people can get involved in climate change initiatives and change their individual life style toward a more environmental friendly way of living by for example saving energy, people must be aware of the dangers and risks related to climate change. Therefore, awareness rising is an important point in the whole climate change debate.
Article 6 of the UNFCCC already calls on parties to develop and implement education and public awareness programmes on climate change and its effects, to ensure public participation in addressing climate change and to train scientific, technical and management personnel.

Awareness rising has been a strong component of climate change intervention in Namibia. Various programmes were initiated in the past and are still in place. Already in 2007 information booklets on climate change were published through the Climate Change Unit. In 2010, the Africa Adaptation Project – Namibia (AAP-Namibia) was launched. The dissemination of Community Climate Change Adaptation Toolkits for Namibia’s different regions, the distribution of briefs outlining key climate change issues to parliamentarians and the nationwide programme for regional councils and regional officers were all products of the AAP-Namibia.

The Climate Change Ambassadors Programme trained and educated over 80 people on climate change issues and the Namibia Climate Change Adaptation Youth Action Programme was supposed to give the youth a voice on climate change through networks, conferences and music festivals on climate change.

4. Challenges and constraints to successful action taking

Namibia has put in place a number of programmes, policies and projects aimed at addressing climate change and thus made significant efforts towards the implementation of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol. However, climate change is not only a national problem but rather a global one with its effects crossing national boundaries. Namibia contributes only very little to the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere but will, however, suffer severely from the adverse effects of climate change.
Nevertheless, there are still numerous challenges Namibia has to face on a national level in its fight against climate change. Among these are the following:
Like in most developing countries, climate change and its impacts are still not well understood in Namibia. This is due to the fact that climate models still suffer from great uncertainty in projecting the future climate. Thus, research into climate change impacts and adaptation/mitigation responses needs to be intensified in Namibia.

Namibia lacks resources to undertake research and implement adaptation and mitigation measures. This includes a lack of financial and human resources. Thus, Namibia needs development of new technologies and transfer of existing appropriate technology. For example, technologies need to be developed to address climate change issues related to water shortages for agricultural production, drought resistant crop varieties and livestock breeds for food security. Namibia does also not have well-trained people who understand the complex nature of climate change, so that extensive training on these issues is necessary.

Although Namibia has a climate change policy and runs a number of climate change programmes, there is no binding climate change legislation in place yet.

The need for research into adaptation to climate change is not properly articulated within national research programmes. A formal multidisciplinary research programme review, evaluation and monitoring exercise for Namibia is necessary to ensure that proper guidance is given to all research institutions, professionals and stakeholders including farming and fishing communities.

Public awareness has to be created as this will empower people, especially rural substance and commercial farmers to participate in adaptive response activities. Knowledge on climate change impacts is currently lacking especially in rural communities.

The UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are global instruments towards addressing climate change. Therefore, governments, institutional organizations and other bodies should promote synergies at the national level and between UNFCCC members when implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation activities.

5. References

GRN / Government of the Republic of Namibia. 2012. Namibia’s National Report to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. Windhoek
GRN / Government of the Republic of Namibia. 2011. National Policy on Climate Change or Namibia. Windhoek. MET.
GRN / Government of the Republic of Namibia. 2011. Namibia’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. Windhoek. MET.