Statement by president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah in Belém, Brazil, 6 November 2025
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I congratulate president Lula da Silva and the government of the Federative Republic of Brazil for hosting this COP30 summit and the choice of Belém, the heart of the Amazon, the lifeline of humanity.
We gather here united by the urgent need to confront the escalating climate crisis and forge a path towards a sustainable future for all. This is especially true for Namibia, which is one of the world's most climate-vulnerable nations.
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Now more than ever, there is a need to combat desertification, land degradation and drought. We can do that as a collective by implementing the Namib Declaration, which was adopted during the Desertification Cop 11 in Windhoek in 2013.
Namibia stands in solidarity with the governments and people of Jamaica, Cuba, and all nations affected by the recent devastating Hurricane Melissa. It is in times of these climatic disasters, which are human induced, that we are reminded of our responsibility to implement the Paris Climate Agreement as a matter of urgency. Ten years are too many considering the level of implementation.
In Namibia, over the past three decades, national mean temperatures have increased by more than twice the global average, while droughts have become more frequent and prolonged. More than 80% of Namibia's land mass is classified as arid or semi-arid, and over 70% of the population depends directly on agriculture for food security and livelihoods.
These weather conditions place immense pressure on fragile water supplies, compromise agricultural production and heighten the risk of disease outbreaks. This year, we experienced flash floods where human lives were lost and strategic infrastructure such as roads were damaged. The economic costs are profound, with recurrent droughts and floods eroding gross domestic product (GDP) growth, damaging infrastructure and reversing development gains.
Hence, Namibia has been working tirelessly to address the effects of climate change, through adaptation and mitigation, as demonstrated through a record of action and transparency.
Our second updated Nationally Determined Contribution commits to reducing projected greenhouse-gas emissions by 7.7 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent and to increasing removals by 4.2 million tonnes, for a total mitigation of 11.9 million tonnes by 2030.
In pursuit of this commitment, our first Biennial Transparency Report and fifth National Communication, submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat on 31 December 2024, confirmed that Namibia remains a net carbon sink and that carbon removals in the land sector have increased by 45% since 1990. This underscores both the integrity of Namibia's reporting and the effectiveness of its land-use policies.
Namibia continues to take positive steps in our quest to meet our commitments. For instance, early this year, I officially launched the Oshivela project, which is one of the world's first industrial-scale green iron plants powered by green hydrogen, operating on a principle of zero emissions.
It is Africa's first green iron plant that makes Namibia one of the global leaders in green industrialisation and positions the country as a viable hub for sustainable energy. The plant will avoid 27 000 tonnes of CO₂ from being emitted into the atmosphere. This is part of the transformative Green Hydrogen Strategy that will see the country take decisive steps towards cleaner and renewable energy sources.
Furthermore, our Nationally Determined Contribution places adaptation at the heart of Namibia's climate strategy. It identifies eight sectors that include agriculture to ensure food security, water resources, biodiversity and ecosystems, fisheries and aquaculture, health, infrastructure, coastal management and other cross-cutting issues.
Adaptation in these sectors requires an estimated US$6 billion, of which about 90% depends on international support. At the same time, mitigation across various sectors is estimated to cost US$9 billion, of which 10% is expected to come from domestic resources.
Consequently, our key national commitments include strengthening integrated water-resource management and groundwater recharge, safeguarding the supply of clean water to households, agriculture and industry, expanding drought-resilient agriculture and climate-smart irrigation, promoting conservation agriculture and the use of drought-tolerant crop varieties to protect rural incomes and national food security.
These national commitments also include restoring degraded rangelands and forests, protecting biodiversity and reinforcing Namibia's natural carbon sink, reinforcing climate-resilient infrastructure including roads, bridges, energy systems and coastal protection to safeguard critical economic assets and trade corridors.
Enhancing health systems is also important to respond to rising cases of heat-related illness and vector-borne diseases through strengthening early-warning and climate-information systems to mitigate loss and damage associated with the adverse impact of climate change.
In order to meet its targets on climate change by 2030, a robust resource mobilisation based on common but differentiated responsibility must be implemented without failure.
The urgency is also based on the fact that the financing gap is widening in most of our countries and public debt is also growing. This is exacerbated by the cost of capital that is exceptionally high for developing countries based on perceived risk that does not reflect realities on the ground.
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Therefore, to enable developing countries to meet their obligations there is a need for the international financial architecture to be reformed so that trade practices are fair and the cost of borrowing reflects real risks.
We call upon member states, multilateral development banks and private investors to provide predictable, sustainable and accessible finance at affordable cost, to support technology transfer and to strengthen national and community capacities through grants and highly concessional finance.
More importantly, COP30 should operationalise the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance of US$1.3 trillion, which must be transparent, equitable and responsive to the needs of developing countries.
One thing we must be sure of is that the future will not judge us on the number of COP conferences and other climate-related conferences we hosted, but on the concrete actions we have taken to save mother earth for her to be able to take care of us now and in future.
I thank you.
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