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Action Aid Zambia has launched the “Fund Our Future” campaign to remind financial institutions and government to act and stop fueling the climate crisis through supporting fosil fuel projects and instead begin to invest in clean energy.
Action Aid Zambia acting Country Director, Andrew Chikowore, said an estimated US$3.2trillion had been provided through fosil project financing to the industry in the 7 years since the Paris Agreement on Climate change was adopted.
Chikowore said this during the official launch of the campaign in Lusaka on Tuesday and added that this was according to a new research conducted by the platform.
“It also shows that bank financing provided to the largest industrial Agriculture companies operating in the global South amounted to a tune of $370billion over the same period,” he said.
Chikowore said a transformation of food systems was needed to address the climate crisis and meet the world’s food and livelihood needs and that agroecological farming was increasingly recognized as a viable alternative to industrialized agriculture.
He also called for a stop in green washing as it was not helping countries like Zambia
“After a deep reflection, we have realized that financial institutions like banks should be held accountable for the climate damage in Zambia and elsewhere.
We are saying no to being a fossil monster,” Chikowore said.
He said there was need to move the money away from fossil fuels into Agroecology because it had proved to be more sustainable and was answering to the future of the people.
Chikowore demanded effective regulation of the banks financing of fossil fuel and industrial agriculture sectors in order to stop fossil expansion including mandatory development of climate transition plans.
“The government must redirect harmful fossil fuel and industrial agricultural subsidies, scale up support and planning for just transitions to real solutions such as renewable energy and agroecology,” he said.
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Ministry of Green Economy and Environment Representative, Philippa Hamakasu, commended launching of the campaign and pledged governments support in order to achieve the set out objectives.
Hamakasu said government was already promoting Green economy through green investments and recognized agriculture as a sector key to Zambia’s economic development.
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