Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Target Increased To 40% In Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe increased its carbon emissions reduction target to 40% from an initial 33% by widening industries to include not just energy, but waste, industrial processes and agriculture.

The southern African country now seeks to limit carbon dioxide emissions to 44.7 million tons by 2030, according to a government climate change report. If no action is taken, they could climb to 75.4 million tons by 2030, it warned. Zimbabwe emitted 35.8 million tons in 2017.

Parties to the Paris Agreement, a United Nations initiative to curb global temperature increases, are required to revise their so-called nationally determined contributions every five years.

Zimbabwe’s biggest source of greenhouse gases is agriculture and forestry, followed by the energy industry, which produced about a third of the gases in 2017, according to the document. The report didn’t mention targets for slashing emissions from coal mining or thermal power generation.