BY PROBLEM MASAU
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has criticised industrialised nations and climate activists for pushing a ban on fossil fuels.
Vowing that Zimbabwe would continue to use its fossil fuels until it attains developed nation status, Mnangagwa said: “They (Western countries) developed their industries through fossil fuels and now they do not want us to use our natural resources to also develop. We will not agree to that. They should agree with us on the timeframe to shift from thermal power to clean energy. And they should also finance the transition.”
Addressing Zanu PF supporters in Glen View, Harare, on his recent trip to Davos in Switzerland, Mnangagwa said developed countries had no locus standi to talk about fossil fuels because they were the major contributors to climate change through carbon emissions.
Zimbabwe has 30 billion tonnes of coal in 21 known locations that could last for over 100 years as well as possible oil and gas deposits in the Zambezi Valley.
Mnangagwa said the war between Ukraine and Russia had exposed Western hypocrisy on fossil fuels and climate change.
“There has been talk that they are going back to using fossil fuels after Russia imposed trade restrictions on its gas,” he said.
The vast majority of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves should be kept in the ground to have some hope of preventing the worst effects of the climate emergency, according to a research published in 2021.
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The peer-reviewed study, published in the scientific journal Nature, found that 90% of coal should remain un-extracted, and nearly 60% of oil and fossil methane gas should stay underground to have a 50% chance of keeping global temperatures from rising above 1,5 degrees Celsius pre-industrial levels.
China’s biggest bank has walked away from a coal power plant in Zimbabwe after the country cut financial support on fossil fuels across the globe.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China said it would no longer finance the 2,8 gigawatt Sengwa coal power plant in Zimbabwe.
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