As the 29th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP) got underway in Baku Azerbaijan on Monday, Malawian youths are demanding subsidies for clean energy products to enable them mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The youths took the campaign a step further by cycling all the way from Blantyre on Saturday 9th November and arrived in Lilongwe on Monday in what was dubbed as the Malawi Climate Justice Cycling Caravan.
Mike Liomba the Cyclist’s representative said the Caravan means a lot to them especially in the wake of the impacts of climate change the country is experiencing manifested through droughts, floods, Cyclones and rising water levels in Lake Malawi.
He further advocated for cushioning measures particularly on green and clean energy sources such as renewables like solar panels and petroleum gas for cooking among others.
“As a nation we really find it hard to recover from these calamities caused by climate change but now these are being caused by rich nations; these rich nations are the heavy polluters and also the heavy contributors to climate change. So we are demanding climate justice so that for us to be able to recover from these, we need lots of resources and we need lots of money.
“We are also advocating that there should be a subsidy whereby each and everyone should be able to buy these and use the clean energy so we can also reduce the impact of climate change”
Dominic Nyasulu, National Coordinator for National Youth Network on Climate Change (NYNCC) said the caravan provides a platform for communities to discuss the negative effects of climate change and takes their voices to the COP29 in Baku.
According to him, the recovery processes have not even started and yet globally, a financing gap exists.
“What they are providing is financing through loans which is something that we don’t want. So the caravan has provided us communities but also individuals just to express, highlight the impact of climate change.
“But also we wanted to raise awareness about COP because we need to be angry about the process, decisions are coming out slowly and yet the impacts are increasingly affecting the rural communities; that’s where the rural community needs to take part in these negotiations.”
He noted that as campaign around climate justice mounts up, there’s need to raise awareness about rural communities understanding that they have not contributed much to the change in climate and yet they bear the brunt as the developed countries continue with their emissions.
Nyasulu stressed on the need for communities to be empowered for them to demand the urgency to trigger actions and resources on the ground.
He also bemoaned some strategic policies that are doing injustices to the communities citing access to resources for youth organisations to access funding as they compete with bigger organisations.
Oxfam Project Coordinator Kondwani Mbisa says the Summit provides an opportunity for community voices to take centre stage.
“Those are not conferences for people who are always in workshops and discussing things from their offices. We need to be talking about things that affect the people who are living in the margins and we thought it wise to partner with our local partners to make sure that we collect those voices from the communities in the build up to this very important conference that is happening so that the voices are coming out and that all these concerns are taken into account in these discussions” he explained
The Cycling Caravan was organized by Civil Society Network on Climate Change (CISONECC) and NYNCC with funding from Concern Worldwide and Oxfam in Africa through Oxfam Malawi.
Malawi is being represented at the Climate Summit taking place from 11th to 22nd November by the Vice President Micheal Usi.
