Namibia stepped up its role in leading the fight against Climate Change by taking the lead in sustainability discussions at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference held in Germany at the beginning of October.
The conference, which took place on 7 and 8 October, provided an opportunity to catalyse dialogue between governments, academia, civil society and business leaders.
President Nangolo Mbumba, who led the Namibian delegation to the conference, said he believed in the “path of hope, which is centered on the fight against climate change; the promotion of international peace; the eradication of poverty and hunger; and the responsible harnessing of digital technologies for the benefit of all humanity.”
Namibia and Germany were co-facilitating the ‘United Nations Summit of the Future’, which took place in New York on 20 and21 September.
“We need platforms of this nature to dialogue and to entrench the path of hope and the momentum the Summit of the Future created for partnership and collective action,” said Mbumba.
He said the UN Summit of the Future and the adoption of the Pact for the Future provided the international community with a window to strengthen global agreements and institutions to ensure the effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“The International System must be equipped to finance these goals through an innovative global financial architecture. We cannot talk about renewal of international relations and implementation of the Pact if we don’t reform the global financial architecture to respond better to the needs of the Global South,” the President said.
Mbumba said Namibia was developing a portfolio of green hydrogen projects which will help accelerate the achievement of SDGs in the country. One example of such a project is the Hyphen Hydrogen Project which the government has committed to investing in.
“The project aims to produce 2 million tonnes of green ammonia, which should abate 3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. The project will produce excess electricity which will be channeled into our own grid, allowing Namibia to deal with improving electricity access to our people,” Mbumba said.
Hyphen has opened up an office in Hamburg to investigate the viability for some of the ammonia to be exported there, to assist with Germany’s decarbonisation efforts.
The Head of State said in addition to the work being done by Hyphen, Namibia was looking to develop the port of Walvis Bay into a global shipping hub. A partnership between Namibian private sector players and a Belgian shipping company was looking to start constructing the first ammonia bunkering hub in the first quarter of 2025.
“In addition to these initiatives, our green hydrogen programme is working closely with the Maersk-McKinney Moller Centre for Zero Carbon Shipping to develop green maritime corridors, providing clear and tangible pathways to transport clean molecules from the ports of Lüderitz and Walvis Bay to Germany and the rest of the world. “In a nutshell, for green hydrogen and its derivatives to become a meaningful element of decarbonising hard to abate sectors, global partnerships are the key ingredients that is required,” President Mbumba said.
