Is Climate Change real?

The twenty-second session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22), the twelfth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 12), and the first session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1) were held in Bab Ighli, Marrakech, Morocco from 7-18 November 2016. Zambia was represented at the conference by President Edgar Lungu. During the Conference, President Lungu reaffirmed Zambia’s commitment to take action on climate change. The President said Climate Change has the potential to reverse developmental gains made by the country in the recent years.

 However, despite the international scientific community's consensus on climate change, some critics continue to deny that climate change exists or that it is a hoax caused by humans. Although some level of debate is useful in looking at the issue of climate change, society must eventually move on and actually address this global phenomenon. As one author puts it “to do nothing about the problem of climate change is akin to letting a fire burn down a building because the precise temperature of the flames is unknown.”

Zambia has not been spared from the effects of climate change. For instance, despite having abundant surface water resources, reduced rainfall has caused reduced water levels in major water bodies in the country. Moreover, population increases in urban areas have also put pressure on groundwater through mismanagement of this scarce resource. The hydro-electric power generation has also been negatively affected by the droughts and floods. Drought has had devastating effect on the hydropower generation in Zambia which has significantly led to economic reduction in the power generation hence causing power rationing as the country depends largely on hydropower. The resultant effect has been the loss of productivity in critical sectors of the economy such as mining, manufacturing and agriculture.

 In the agriculture sector, reduced productivity and perennial food shortages are some of the effects of climate change. Particularly crops and livestock production are affected by increasing temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and more frequent and intense extreme weather conditions.

In terms of human health, studies have indicated that the vulnerability assessment shows that the entire country is at risk to a multitude of other climate-sensitive diseases such as dysentery, cholera, respiratory infections and malnutrition. These diseases are more pronounced in the provinces that are most vulnerable to climate.

What is the Paris Agreement on climate change all about? The Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention and for the first time, brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate change effort. The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change.

Zambia signed the Paris Agreement on climate change on 20^th September, 2016 when President Edgar Lungu appended his signature to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change during the Treaty Event at the High-Level Segment of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This renewed the country’s commitment and resolves to take action on the ground that can put the country on a path to sustainable development. This therefore, means that Zambia has ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change and only awaits necessary measures to ratify the agreement to the United Nations.

Therefore, the formulation of a national policy on climate change will be another important milestone for the country in mitigating the impact of climate change. It is however, worth noting that Zambia is in the process of adopting a comprehensive National Policy on Climate Change which has been formulated and only awaits Cabinet approval. The goal of this policy is to support and facilitate a coordinated response to climate change in the country. It is aimed at enabling the country re-align its climate sensitive sectors of the economy and its society in order to meet its developmental goals through adaptation and mitigation interventions.

 Although the Paris agreement will always be paper commitment by countries, Zambia will have to do much more to reduce the impacts of climate change on the ecosystem, food security, environment and economic production. The solution to climate change therefore, is to help reduce carbon pollution and make renewable energy like wind and solar power more affordable. Other measures will include sustainable management of forests and strengthening early warning systems. All these efforts will require substantial financial commitment by government and other cooperating partners including the mainstreaming of information provision and access to all stakeholders to meet the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Finding the rightful place for our youths in today's society: the case of Max vs Innocent

In our world today, science, technology and society are undergoing dramatic changes. The rapid increase of knowledge in a wide range of disciplines is triggering off scientific and technological developments that deeply affect our lives and transform our culture. Innovations in many fields, for instance, in information and communication technology have led to what is now called the “knowledge society”. Knowledge is becoming the key resource in our societies and a central factor in political, social and economic decision making. It is however, saddening to see a dearth in intellectual discourse and knowledge based dialogue as a process social cohesion especially among young people. 

Ideally, this should have been a time for many of our young people to read and acquire knowledge about the science and technology of nuclear technology, robotics, android development, android applications, financial modeling, HIV vaccines, environmental protection, Climate Change, medicine etc and make the results of such discoveries as a basis for sound debate and decision making. However, this seems not to be the case for many young people in our country.

Recently, two separate amateur videos went viral on social media featuring youths from two known political parties challenging each other to a boxing bout at Mulungushi Conference Centre after a verbal exchange. There is no doubt that these videos set Zambian social media alight with many likes, comments and tags. This brought some few thoughts to my mind; Could this be why we have more gymnasiums in our communities than public libraries, more mushrooming taverns and shebeens than institutionalized school systems, more alcohol sales than the annual turnovers of all water utility companies put together etc? What about our political parties, are they engaging these youths who constitute the majority of their members in meaningful programs to prepare them for key leadership roles of the country? What is even worrying is to see youths who are supposed to be key players in the decision making process of our country to begin showing signs of intellectual dwarfism and suffocation.  This is what the videos of these two youths reflected, a society that has lost sense of its direction.

Instead, this should be time to engage deep intellectual fights, fights for and against ideas and not physical fights or violence against each other. This is the time for reading and discovering new knowledge and ideas to improve the lives of people in communities. Our country today needs charismatic and honest young men in politics who can motivate and inspire their fellow youths to change the status quo. Our current status, where youths in political parties are only used as agents of political mayhem is unsustainable and detrimental to the future of this country with its great potential. Sadly enough, the few intelligent men and women who can actualize the Zambian ideals are also avoiding politics because of the ‘dirty’ tag that has for a long time been attached to it. There is need for young people to come out of wherever they are and take on the mantle of leadership in our society. Many people in our society today still think nation building and the political process of decision making are the exclusive preserve of the old people and as such youths should not be given a chance. Perhaps, such perception of youths explains why youths are merely said to be leaders of tomorrow, and not now.

This is the unfortunate mind-set that seems to have informed or misinformed the pattern of successive national leadership in our country. This cliché in some way has sedated many youths and created in them a sense of reluctance in participating and taking up leadership roles and responsibilities that can help in the social, economic and political transformation of our country.

Although the definition of youth varies from culture to culture, community-to-community and country-to-country, the United Nations defines youth as a male or female aged between 15 and 24 years, whilst Commonwealth Youth Programme defines youth as a male or female aged between 15 and 29 years. The 2006 National Youth Policy defined a youth as a male or female person aged between 18 and 35 years. However, the 2015 National Youth Policy for Zambia defines a youth as a male or female person aged between 15 and 35 years and statistically constitute the majority in the population of our country.

However, when it comes to youths taking up leadership and decision making positions at the different levels of our communities, the majority of youths are relegated to the gutter and the inferior positions where they cannot make any meaningful impact in the decision-making processes of many social and political organizations or institutions in our country. This exclusion in the decision making process of our society is part of the problem facing many youth and has incapacitated many of them not to fully partake in issues of nation building and development. However, in a broader sense, youth should refer to people who have the energy, drive, vigor and enthusiasm to get things done. It is a state of mind not a function of age, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over cowardice and an unquenchable appetite for progressive reasoning and not conduits for social instability and violence.