Mission accomplished! Malawi will now benefit from climate finances from countries whose industries emit more carbon into the atmosphere thereby aggravating the problem of climate change.
Yesterday, the COP27 reached an agreement in which developed nations will help Least Developed Countries (LDCs) who bear the burden of climate change despite not contributing much to the same.
They have agreed to set up a fund to pay for some of the loss and damage being inflicted by global warming. This is a big step towards positive direction in as far as mitigating the impact of climate change is concerned.
In his capacity as chairperson of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has for two years been a leading voice in lobbying to the global community for increased funding towards climate adaptation and mitigation in poor countries.
His argument has always been that poor countries are not huge emitters but suffer probably the worst effects. Malawi alone has for the past five years been hit by cyclones, tropical storms and other natural disasters which have destroyed lives and property.
President Chakwera first made the call in Glasgow, Scotland at the Conference of Parties (COP26) United Nations Summit in 2021. He repeated the call in 2022 at the COP27 which took place in Egypt.
Despite such landmark achievement, COP27 has shelved many of the most controversial decisions on the fund into next year when a “transitional committee” is expected to make recommendations for countries to then adopt at the COP28 next November.
It might have not been entirely his sole contribution but the Malawi leader has done a commendable job in the realization of such a milestone.
Details of how much Malawi will receive from the financing arrangement will be made clear as time goes when developed countries begin to make commitments.