Staff Writer
The Africa Voluntary Carbon Credits Market Forum in partnership with Aither Group is set to convene the Southern Africa Carbon Markets Summit in Botswana in September.
The event, to be hosted in partnership with the government of Botswana on September 17 to 19 2024, seeks to discuss practical steps towards climate financing, leveraging on the Paris Agreement.
The summit will be held under the theme “Fostering inclusivity towards unlocking and harnessing Africa’s Carbon Markets’ Potential for Financing Sustainable Transition.”
The event will discuss and build consensus around the climate financing models, the strategic public-private partnerships, and how African governments, working with the private sector can deal with the scourge of climate change while driving the Sustainable Development Agenda.
The Africa Voluntary Carbon Credits Market Forum is a Pan-African, people-centric climate action movement, that is driving an inclusive, just and equitable climate action agenda.
The high-level climate finance summit will be attended by Heads of State from Southern African countries, Ministers of Finance, Ministers of Environment, Ministers of Foreign Affairs and DNA Authorities, chief executives of international multi-national companies, international banking corporations, heads of parastatals, aviation, hospitality, telecoms, energy sector heads among others.
The event comes as Sub-Saharan countries have to consistently maintain very high budgets for responding to disasters, strengthening their disaster response systems, fund coping, resilience building and adaptation.
The organisers said countries continue to bear the costs of loss and damage, having to resettle the victims of these natural disasters while suffocating from the excruciating pressure of debt burden by the very same countries that are responsible for the global climate calamity.
Furthermore, the challenge of debt overhang continues to haunt and cripple African economies with the developed countries unwilling to cancel or review some of the debts.
The Southern African countries are currently experiencing what scientists have called the worst ever El Niño induced drought, with weakened coping, resilience and adaptation systems increasing vulnerability and scaling up the risk.
