A senior official from the Angolan Ministry of Environment assured this Friday that the country is engaged transitioning to a less oil-dependent economy, but ensuring this is done without harming communities.
Angola “is a country that is very committed to the process of decarbonization and just transition, because “The largest contributor to GDP (gross domestic product) comes from oil exploration.”The head of the Mitigation and Adaptation Department of the Angolan Ministry of the Environment, Ivone Pascoal, stated this Friday at COP29.
Recognizing that “the just transition process is very necessary,” the same official stated that the country “is committed to moving towards a that does not depend so much on oil” and implement measures that have already led to 60% of electricity production coming from renewable sources, water and solar.”
In a debate titled “Shared Paths: building bridges for a just transition in CPLP (Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries) “ Ivone Pascoal maintains that the transition must be carried out “in the countries’ time and without harming their communities.”
A point at which the representatives of Sao Tome and Principe, Brazil and Portugal converged in the conversation in which, regarding the way forward, each one presented different perspectives.
For the Director of Energy of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Natural Resources of Sao Tome and Principe, Gabriel Maquengo, “the island nature of the country increases its vulnerability and makes integration into a network solution difficult,” in addition to “the measures that can be taken Relying on funding, which is not fair either.”
For the country that “spends 30 million dollars to generate electricity for the population” there are, for now, “steps that it is not possible to take,” but, even so, the Government “committed to reducing emissions by 27%despite not being considered an issuing country, seeking decarbonize as much as possible the electrical system.”
Brazil, represented by the Climate Change advisor of the Ministry of the Environment, Alice Amorim, defended “a macro reflection on development models”, in the case of this country, with special focus on “food systems, agriculture and deforestation” of the Amazon rainforest.
And finally, the president of the Common House of Humanity, Paulo Magalhães, recalled that “a just transition always implies a historical-temporal perspective” of the issue that “It will not be resolved if the legal issue is not resolved,” Since it is not possible to determine responsibility for “emissions from more than 200 years ago” and it is a “no-man” climate, it is difficult to determine who should pay for decarbonization.
“The atmosphere and the oceans They are the garbage dump of humanity”, instead of being recognized as “a common good”. And until there is consensus on this recognition, “the problem will not be resolved,” he concluded.
The just transition is a fundamental concept in the fight against climate change, which seeks to transform the current food system into a more sustainable and equitable model, to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, the consequences of which affect all countries.
The debate was one of the 55 initiatives scheduled in the Portugal Pavilion at the 29th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP29), which will last until the 22nd, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Source: Observadora
