As El Niño bites, Zimbabwe takes aim at climate change with new law

Forty kilometers outside Zimbabwe's city of Bulawayo, Moses Kumbweya, a small-scale farmer in Ntabazinduna, a peri-urban community, watched helplessly as his lettuce crop turned from lush green to dried brown leaves due to disrupted rainfall patterns caused by El Niño. Kumbweya, who relies on rainfall-fed agriculture to grow cash crops like lettuce to supply local markets in the city, said the effects of climate change have been more devastating compared to the 2012 El Niño. “This year has become worse with this heat, it is very bad,” he said, adding that climate change effects have “struck closer to home.” “So far I have lost about 10,000 crops of lettuce, which is around $6,000. As for maize, $1,200 was for maize seed and $800 for fertilizers. So, I lost roughly $8,000,” Kumbweya said of the economic losses he has suffered. According to a recent study published in Nature, a “greenhouse warming-related effect” has led to stronger and more frequent El Niños and La Niñas since the 1960s, causing unusual droughts, floods, and heat waves worldwide. El Niño has resulted in rainfall shortages in the southern Africa region from January to March 2024, particularly affecting Zambia, Zimbabwe, southern Malawi, central Mozambique, southeastern Angola, and northeastern Botswana, and is driving increased humanitarian needs. Limited and erratic rainfall in Zimbabwe linked to stronger El Niño effects, coupled with dry and hot conditions, meant that the main cropping season, which usually starts in October, has been shorter and far less productive due to crop wilting. With the disrupted weather patterns affecting Zimbabwean farmers across the country, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared a national disaster earlier this month. In addition, the government has been working on a climate change law — the Climate Change Act — to advance mitigation and adaptation. Washington Zhakata, director of the Climate Change Management Department in Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Environment, Climate and Wildlife, confirmed that authorities were currently developing a climate change bill. “It is anticipated that by the end of the year, the Climate Change Act will be in place to ensure that it assists the government in designing programs towards climate resilience,” Zhakata said in an interview. He added that the aim of the bill is to help the country reduce the impacts of climate change and meet its obligations under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, especially around its emission reduction targets. Zhakata also said that starting this month of April, the draft bill was undergoing consultations. Recommendations from these would be passed to Parliament, which would also carry out its own consultations countrywide — but civil society organizations are yet to partake in the consultation process. Civil society organizations such as the Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights, which promotes peaceful civic engagement to improve the protection and promotion of human rights and freedoms, expressed support for the establishment of a Climate Change Act, citing compelling evidence for well-crafted laws and policies mitigating climate change-related risks. “We need to realize climate change is a reality that we have as a country. It is important that we stop crying and complaining about climate change but come up with mechanisms that will ensure our people are more resilient to climate change and can also mitigate [its] adverse impacts,” Khumbulani Maphosa, director at MIHR, told Devex. “Climate change legislation is therefore very important because it will create an enabling framework for climate change innovation, adaptation, and mitigation strategies in the country. That kind of legislation should guide how the country allocates its fiscal resources toward enhancing climate change resilience, adaptation, and mitigation,” he added. Zhakata indicated that the Climate Change Act will put the climate adaptation strategy into action by ensuring that all ministries, departments, and agencies include climate change in their planning and budgets. This will help ensure that government policy and planning are informed by research on the impacts of climate change on local communities, he explained. “This data is very useful for coming up with a framework for loss and damage or to access loss and damage funds,” he said, mentioning the loss and damage fund that was operationalized at the 2023 U.N. Climate Change Conference, to which $700 million have been pledged. With more countries stepping forward to contribute to this fund, Zimbabwe must carefully determine instances where specific planning decisions have led to communities experiencing the effects of natural disasters, rather than climate change being the reason. For example, if urban planning or development has led to people living at the confluence of rivers, steep slopes, or on river banks, this would mean that when flooding happens, they may not qualify for funds from the loss and damage fund, he explained. Economic specialist Vincent Musewe stressed that climate change is a serious threat to Zimbabwe’s agro-based economy, including small-scale farmers like Kumbweya. He advised that if climate adaptation and mitigation efforts are not fully implemented, the country’s economy will face huge knock-on effects. “Any economy based on primary production will be hugely affected by climate change. Zimbabwe’s food security and tobacco exports are threatened by climate change. This will have a negative knock-on effect on industry in the agro-processing value chain, affecting millions of households and livelihoods. Climate change mitigation is a national food security issue which must be taken seriously,” he said.