The National Climate Change Conference and launch of the Climate Change Response Strategy which was held from the 19th and the 20th of November 2015 at the HICC Harare and the hosting of the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Arica (ICASA) from the 28th of November to the 4th of December 2015 at the same venue shows that the country is concerned in two issues that are forcing the nation into subject poverty. At national level both HIV/AIDS and impacts of climate change have one way the other perpetuate the decline of the standard of living of many Zimbabweans. There is no doubt that the two had a bearing in the failure of the Millennium Development Goals at both national and the global level. However, recent developments in global governance and global financing has shown that developing countries are now more focused into mitigation and adaptation measures aimed at reducing the impacts of climate change at the expense of the HIV/AIDS epidemic impacts which are more prevalent in developing countries. Equal global sustainable development has been a tough endeavor because development models that have been implemented have tend to focus on one issue at the expense of another.
From Athens to Yokohama, metropolises around the world have been making real progress in reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change, whilst from Cape Town to Nairobi African governments have been battling to contain diseases mainly HIV/AIDS and Ebola at times. To show that the developing world has taken climate change as a priority than the HIV/AIDS is the formation of the C40 in 2005. The C40 comprises 82 of the world’s biggest cities including New York, London, Tokyo, Lagos, Mumbai, Mexico City, and Jakarta representing over 600 million people and one quarter of the global economy. According to a new report released by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), a network of cities founded in 2005 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, urban centers have collectively committed to reduce their carbon emissions by 3 billion tons by 2030, equivalent to the annual carbon output of India. It is important to note that these cities are, home to more than half the world’s population and accounting for more than 60 per cent of global carbon emissions that have been taking unprecedented action in fighting climate change. It is interesting to note that sectors of city climate action include: adaptation, buildings, community-scale development, energy supply, finance, food & agriculture, mass transit, outdoor lighting, private transport, waste and water.
Another reason why the HIV/AIDS is no longer a priority to developing countries is that climate change in the long run is going to cause conflict over the scarce resources that would have been left. This has already started. Some world leaders have already linked the Syrian war to the world’s failure to tackle climate change. Prince Charles has even went further to state that the root cause of the civil war in Syria, terrorism and the consequent refugee crisis engulfing Europe are a result by world powers to manage the impact of Climate Change. Which is resulting in reduction of fresh water and arable land. Research has revealed that there is very good evidence that one of the major reasons for the horror in Syria, funnily enough, was a drought that lasted for about five or six years, which meant that huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land but increasingly they came into the cities, climate change induced migration. In this regard climate change pose more danger to the developed economies and interests compared to HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is evident that the developed countries have managed to control the HIV virus and contain AIDS itself compared to their developing counterparts who are still battling to contain and control the HIV virus and contain AIDS itself.
An analysis on the MDGs and the upcoming SDGs clearly shows the shift in priority that has been discussed earlier. In 2000, the global community took an historic step in the United Nations Millennium Declaration by acknowledging the importance of an effective response to HIV/ AIDS and by placing it in the context of the broader development agenda. Among the many health targets that were then established in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), MDG 6 calls for unprecedented action to halt and begin to reverse the AIDS epidemic. As the United Nations Member States implicitly recognized when they endorsed the Millennium Declaration, the persistent burden associated with communicable diseases undermines efforts to reduce poverty, prevent hunger and preserve human potential in the world’s most resource-limited settings. We are now less than a month from the deadline for the MDGs. Over the years, the gloom and disappointments chronicled in the early editions of the UNAIDS Global report on the AIDS epidemic have given way to more promising tidings, including historic declines in AIDS-related deaths and new HIV infections and the mobilisation of unprecedented financing for HIV-related activities in low- and middle-income countries. Yet AIDS remains an unfinished MDG, underscoring the need for continued and strengthened international solidarity and determination to address this most serious of contemporary health challenges.
The challenge is that climate change has impacts that are not uniform globally, and the mitigation and adaptation plans need to factor such into serious consideration. If the issue of climate is addressed properly it means SDG 1: End poverty in all forms everywhere, SGD2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture, SDG6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all SDG 13: Combat and take urgent action to compart climate change and its impacts, SDG14: Conserve and sustainability use the oceans and marine resources for sustainable development. SDG 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. There is no doubt that climate change is has an effect in all of the above mentioned SDGs. Therefore, it is the issue of effective climate change action that is needed to be looked at so as to tackle the above goals. The real issue is that, since, climate change is already built into the planet’s system. Therefore, mitigation and adaptation for climate change are required holistically, but this issue is not being addressed seriously or with sufficient urgency. On a comparative analysis HIV/AIDS has been put under Goal 3; which states that ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages and only point 3.3 of that goal states that by 2030 end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases, and other communicable diseases.
Conclusively, looking at the global financial trends climate change initiatives have been receiving large amounts compared to HIV/AIDS since 2013. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was made operational in the summer of 2014. Parties called for an immediate capitalization of between $10 billion and $15 billion over the course of the first year. Initial funding came from Germany, France, and a dozen other countries who pledged approximately $2.3 billion during the United Nations Climate Summit in September 2014. The Obama Administration announced a pledge of $3 billion over four years during the G-20 meetings in Australia on November 15, 2014. The U.S. and China announced significant steps in their efforts to combat climate change, including a pledge by China to launch a program by 2017 to cap some emissions and put a price on carbon and to contribute $3.1 billion to help poorer countries finance their own transition programs on the 25th of September 2015. However, although continued gains were made in mobilizing financial resources for the AIDS response in 2012, although HIV/AIDS expenditures remain short of the global target of US$ 22-24 billion, in 2014 the amounts dedicated to the cause have drastically fell and not forthcoming.
Tapuwa O’bren Nhachi is a Programs Coordinator with the Institute of Sustainability Africa (INSAF): www.instforsustainafrica.org Email: [email protected] Twitter: @onhachi
