(15:30 - 16:30 EET) Climate Change Policy & Actions in Ethiopia: lessons learned in practice & the Ethiopia’s LT-LEDS for the 2050 pathways

Ethiopia has been experiencing a frequent climate change induced drought and flood for decades. The country is experiencing one of the most severe climate change-induced droughts in the last 40 years. The prolonged drought continues and it compromise fragile livelihoods heavily reliant on climate sensitive sectors and deepening food insecurity and malnutrition. In the year 2020 to 2022 alone, more than 8 million pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in Somali (3.5 million), Oromia (3.4 million), SNNP (1 million) and South-West (more than 15,000 people) are currently affected by the drought, of which more than 7.2 million people need food assistance and 4.4 million people need water assistance. Nearly 2.1 million livestock have died, while at least 22 million livestock are at risk and are very weak.

Nonetheless, Ethiopia has formulated different climate change strategies such as the Climate Resilient Green economy Strategy (CRGE), National Adaptation Plan (NAP) and (updated) NDC which well identifies the climate change mitigation and adaptation options to respond to the ever increasing impacts of climate change. The CRGE which has been the blue print for the country economic development was undergone mid-rem review covering between 2011 and 2019 and promising results are achieved while the challenges and next actions are identified. Efforts are going on to address those challenges. Currently, Ethiopia has developed its Long Term Low Emission development Strategy (LT-LEDS) that will be launched at COP27 in NDC Partnership Pavilion.
The aforementioned climate related strategies and plans are translating to the eminent climate adaptation actions mainly focused on the nature based solutions (NBS) such as the Green Legacy Initiative and others indicate Ethiopia’s clear commitment to address the devastating impacts of the climate change that Ethiopia has been facing. It is, therefore, imperative to present the best climate change strategies and plans at the COP27 so that the international community can draw lessons from Ethiopia and also trigger of pulling support to the country’s endeavours to fight against the climate change.