Caritas Zambia’s statement on climate change at Conference of Parties revealed

Caritas Zambia participated in the just ended Conference of Parties (COP24) on Climate Change which brought around 200 countries all over the world together in southern Poland's Katowice. The main objective of the conference was to arrive at the decisions necessary to ensure the full implementation of the Paris Agreement through the designing of instruments that will enable countries to achieve climate change goals.

In this effort, Caritas Zambia appreciated the decision made by the conference to adopt a set of guidelines and work programme for the implementation of the Paris Agreement, Lusaka Times noted.

Caritas Zambia also welcomed the operationalization of the local communities and indigenous platform with a hope that it will pave the way for genuine participation and effectively ensure that the experience and wisdom of traditional communities worldwide will inform global decisions on climate change issues.

It further mentioned that COP24 failed to deliver climate justice to the most vulnerable people in the world. The lack of focus on loss and damage of the environment leaves people living in poverty even more vulnerable. The negotiations in Poland lacked the ambition and cooperation needed to agree on crucial measures to avert the catastrophic effects of climate change. The international rulebook was done but doesn't conclusively include necessary rules, tools or finance to actually stop the momentum of the changing climate.

The organization, in the context of country's benefit, urged the government to revise and enhance its Nationally Determined Contributions before 2020 in line with its fair share. It also requested to actively address gender and human rights dimensions in the revision of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDSs) and the implementation of both mitigation and adaptation measures.