Nowadays, our world has been witnessing various man-made and natural disasters that resulted in numerous human lives, huge property damages, desertification among others due to a global climate change. It is obvious that rich countries have become rich on high carbon growth while poor countries have remained poor and vulnerable to vagaries of weather and climate.
To overcome climate change related challenges, Ethiopia has been implementing Climate-Resilient Green Economic Strategy (CRGE). Moreover, the country has a vision of being both a middle-income country and carbon-neutral by the second half of the next decade. It as well has concrete plans for getting there.
Indeed, concerted efforts are being exerted to contain Ethiopia’s double-digit growth rate and de-carbonise at the same time. Plus, degraded land has been restored to great productivity and forests have been preserved and enhanced by the work of local communities. Thus, across Ethiopia people in the weredas and kebeles are busy planting trees and building watershed.
Ethiopia’s first-hand experience on how to combine poverty reduction on all its dimensions with environmental and climate responsibility carries lessons for most developing countries.
Since the introduction of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilience Green Economic Strategy (CRGE), a number of watershed management have been carried out all over the country in a bid to restore degraded lands here and there. Most degraded and gulled lands have now changed into fertile farming land and mountains that used to be highly vulnerable for soil erosion have been covered with various kinds of indigenous and exotic trees.
But, there is a long way to go to achieve the set goals in Climate Resilient Green Economy; particularly, taking care of enclosed green areas in integrated and sustainable manner need special attention by the public at large and the pertinent body.
Moreover, enormous campaigns of planting trees have been conducted in the entire nation ever since the turn of Ethiopian millennium. It is true that the campaigns have played pivotal roles in the fight against deforestation. However, we need to bear in mind that the caring activities of the newly planted trees must be an integral part of the campaigns in order to obtain the required outcome.
Apparently, Ethiopia has been intensively utilizing renewal energy sources like hydro-power, wind farm, Bio-gas and so on. Indeed, these energy sources have irreplaceable roles in the realization of the nation’s green economy policy. But, the recurrent power outages have been a serious setback to the green economy as many state and private owned industries have been forced to use diesel generators during the power blackout. The smokes that come out of the diesel generators have a great negative impact on the environment.
Therefore, the recurrent power outages need immediate solutions from the concerned body and the government should make use of the existing renewal energy sources of nation extensively and effectively on top of introducing new kinds of renewal energy sources across the nation.
In general, Climate Resilient Green Economy of Ethiopia on several occasions has been proven effective. To combat climate change and environmental degradation, the so far registered achievements in this regard need to be documented in a professional manner. As to passing down important lessons to the posterity, implementing remarkable and practical vision of how to combine development on the one hand and environment and climate responsibility on the other is a must.
Every fellow citizen should join the campaign of greening our planet by saying no to deforestation and reducing the use of emissions in the world.
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