Ethiopia Leading Africa In Going Green the Right Way!

A Look at Ethiopia's Green Initiatives From 2012 to 2023.

Ethiopia, 2012-2023

by: Ethiopia

For Ethiopia, green growth is a necessity as well as an opportunity to be seized. It is an opportunity to realize the country's huge potential in renewable energy and a necessity so as to arrest agro-ecological degradation that threatens to trap millions of it's citizens in poverty.

We have therefore embarked upon the development of a Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy addressing both climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives. We have now completed the preparation of the green economy strategy, which will be fully integrated into our five-year Growth and Transformation Plan. Our goal is quickly to improve the living conditions of our people by reaching a middle-income status by 2025 based on carbon-neutral growth. We are committed to effectively transforming Ethiopia into an early adopter of a low-carbon growth path by 2013, and our CRGE initiatives are already being translated into investment-ready projects in the four key sectors.

One important green resource that will help us reach our goals is hydroelectric power. We plan to increase our generation capacity fivefold over the next five years to support green growth at home and potentially export to neighboring countries, both as a source of income and as a concrete contribution to development and sustainability in Eastern Africa. Ethiopia has the natural resources to generate all the clean energy it needs and to decouple its economy from the fluctuating prices and unsustainable nature of the oil-based economy. At the same time, carbon finance could play an increasingly important role in the global economy and one that Ethiopia and its neighbors can benefit from.

The positive impact of sustainable development on health, social justice, economic growth, and natural resource conservation is significant. There are enormous untapped opportunities for action on climate change in Ethiopia and, for that matter, Africa as a whole that we can now begin to seize with international support on financing, infrastructure, and execution capacity. Our country is well positioned and moving fast to contribute to developing a green global economy, the environmental legacy and commercial benefits of which will endure long into the future. Ethiopia has also put over 700,000 hectares of existing biodiversity and carbon-rich natural forests under a sustainable participatory forest management initiative, in addition to tree planting forestation and reforestation efforts.

The Ethiopia CRGE Launched in 2021 is a vision to build a middle-income climate resilient green economy by 2025 (USD 1,000 GDP per capita) through zero net carbon growth. This development strategy is laid out in the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP). Climate change is impacting across the whole economy. As the name suggests, the Climate Resilience and Green Economy Strategy (CRGE) strategy aims to keep greenhouse gas emissions low and build climate resilience, while achieving middle-income status by 2025. Ethiopia is currently reviewing progress and updating the CRGE strategy. The CRGE vision is: For Ethiopia to become a middle-income country by 2025, and to achieve this through economic growth that is resilient to climate change and results in no net greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock is the single largest source of emissions in Ethiopia (excl. LULUCF) (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 2021). Ethiopia has projects underway to reduce methane emissions from livestock including a project for the low emission development for the dairy sector with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition.

Despite planting billions of trees over the past four years, experts say that the threat of desertification continues to loom large over the rugged and landlocked African country Ethiopia.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency Yitebitu Moges, researcher and coordinator with the Environment and Forest Ministry, said the country’s measures to combat desertification are based on reforestation and afforestation. “Reforestation is planting trees where the forest is decreasing while afforestation is creating new forest by planting new trees where there were no trees before,” he said. He said, while the rate of desertification has shown a steady decline over the past 10 years, it continues to be a threat to the country’s ecology.

“However, desertification is still a real threat and the Sahara and Sudan’s desert could expand to Ethiopia,” he said. He added that the total forest area in Ethiopia is till mere 15.5%. But that is a significant rise since 2012! According to the U.N. FAO, 11.2% or about 12,296,000 ha of Ethiopia was forested at that time. Between 1990 and 2010, Ethiopia lost an average of 140,900 ha or 0.93% per year. In total, between 1990 and 2010, Ethiopia lost 18.6% of its forest cover, or around 2,818,000 ha. Now Ethiopia is seeing positive growth from its initiatives and ended a potentially devastating trend. Ethiopia is seeing a gain of about 1% of its forests 150,00 Hectares each year with its initiatives in place and plans to expand it giving the country greater economic and food security

Ethiopia's forests contain 219 million metric tons of carbon in living forest biomass. Biodiversity and Protected Areas: Ethiopia has some 1408 known species of amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles according to figures from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. Of these, 7.0% are endemic, meaning they exist in no other country, and 4.6% are threatened. Ethiopia is home to at least 6603 species of vascular plants, of which 15.1% are endemic. 4.9% of Ethiopia is protected under IUCN categories I-V.

Currently In Ethiopia!

Ethiopia has enlisted the cooperation of people in and around its forests to manage woodland better, hoping to protect the country from the effects of climate change while boosting development prospects for its population of 100 million. According to an article in Reuters Magazine.

The government of Africa’s second most populous country has set an ambitious aim of reducing poverty and becoming a carbon-neutral economy by 2025, in part by transforming the way rural landscapes are managed. Its Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy aimed to meet almost half of its target reduction in carbon emissions by adding 5 million hectares (12.4 million acres) of forests by 2020 – but it was only able to gain 404 thousand Hectares by that time due to the pandemic and need for water – currently the country is even more focused on restoring 22 million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030.

The government sees adding forests as a key way to both curb climate change and help the country adapt to and deal with strong climate change impacts, including droughts, said Yitbetu Moges, the national representative for REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) at Ethiopia’s Ministry of Forestry, Environment and Climate Change.

With water resources under ever greater stress due to the country’s rising population, forests are important to maintaining stable rainfall and building drought resilience, while the carbon they store reduces emissions to the environment, Moges said. Now that Ethiopia has almost completed its most aggressive project in greening their nation the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam they see success as inevitable because it is about more than physical resources its about saving lives and bettering the lives of multiple nations. Some nations like the US have tried to gaslight Egypt to slow down Ethiopia's progress but even the Egyptian Government has stated in 2022 the following: The yearly average water use per capita in Egypt is estimated at 556 cubic meters by 2025, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. Hence, water poverty in Egypt is not a direct result of the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam and its effects on the share of Nile water per capita.