Ministries should ensure projects in Zimbabwe are climate friendly

Bulawayo South national assembly member Eddie Cross has said all ministries that deal with issues related to emissions should be held responsible for ensuring that all projects in Zimbabwe are climate friendly.

 Commenting on the planned expansions of power stations in the country, Cross said most of the projects were being planned without regard to the issue of climate change.

"If you go to South Africa, the majority of power is generated by coal. You go to ports in South Africa, you actually smell coal in the atmosphere.

"This is not something that as a developing country we can ignore."

Cross bemoaned the state of the country's indigenous forests which he said have been severely depleted.

"Because of the growth in our tobacco industry, we are clearing about 300 000 hectares of forest in the Mashonaland area on an annual basis. This was a problem for many years in this country, and was resolved by adopting other technologies," Cross said.

"I am not attacking tobacco because it is critical to us. What I am attacking is the means of curing tobacco. What we have to do is to seek means, with the technologies available in Zimbabwe, for cleaner tobacco curing and we have to make sure that these are adopted and implemented."

Cross called for investigations into the future of indigenous forest in Matabeleland North.

"This represents the largest area of indigenous forest in Zimbabwe of over three million hectares of forest and it is in a highly degraded state.

"I would like to suggest we, as a House ought to support investigations into the situation and make sure that this deterioration in our indigenous forest resources in Matabeleland North is halted and reversed. ," Cross said.