International Day of Parliaments 2023

International Day of Parliaments 2023: What Should be the Role of Lawmakers in Addressing Climate Action

Every year international community celebrates the international day of Parliamentary to reflect on their role in national plans and strategies and in ensuring greater transparency and accountability at national and global levels.

The day is celebrated while the world is facing the failure to hit the target of keeping global warming under 1.5. as stipulated in the Paris Agreement. This is in the right connection with the COP28   where Parties will convene to conclude on global stocktake after two years they have assessed the stocktake at COP26 held in Paris.

To emphasize their role, this year, the International Day for Parliaments focused on “My Parliament, my Planet” as the theme to initiate conversations revolving around climate action and climate emergency.

It’s worth noting that since its adoption by the UN under the A/RES/72/278 resolution, parliaments have been playing a pivotal role in ensuring climate change adaptation and mitigation agenda becomes a reality and not a dream, through legislation.

Parliamentarians play a crucial role in addressing the climate change challenge by ensuring the government’s accountability and effectiveness as well as providing a vital knowledge link with constituents, both aspects being important in ensuring a country’s response and resilience to climate change.

While Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement under UNFCCC, countries developed Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to commit to cutting emissions that resulted in Global warming and enable climate change adaptation and mitigation.

UNFCCC advises Countries to establish their NDCs and update them every Five years. The majority of countries in the Eastern Africa region have now submitted their updated NDCs including Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda while Djibouti is in the process of finalizing its update. The updates have gained more structure and offer more specific details with improved methodologies as compared to the first iteration.

 What was the role of Parliaments in supporting Climate action?

Different countries have been able to pass legislation that will help them to implement the actions for climate change that are essential to ensuring a liveable future for everyone on the planet.

For example, in Kenya, the parliament passed the climate change Act 2016 and updated it in 2023, which provides guidance for low-carbon and climate climate-resilient development. Kenya’s priorities as articulated through those and other instruments include Adaptation, Afforestation and Reforestation, Landscape restoration, climate-smart Agriculture, Geothermal and clean energy development, energy efficiency, and drought and food risk management.

On the other hand, there was a strong desire to have all African people play a part in discussions and decision-making processes regarding problems and challenges facing the continent. To this effect, African Union created Pan African Parliament to facilitate this Pan-African conversation.

Like any other regional or national parliaments, since its establishment, PAP has contributed to the reduction of the climate change crisis through voting policies, and laws and ensuring their promotion at the national parliament level. The ultimate goal is to facilitate the promotion of collective self-reliance and economic recovery so as to contribute to a more prosperous future for the people of Africa.

The Pan-African Parliaments have set events to provide a platform for Parliamentarians, Government Officials, Experts, Civil society Organizations, and other Stakeholders to share ideas, exchange best practices, and explore ways to address the pressing challenges of climate change.

In Africa, when Parliamentarians from across Africa convened for the third Pan African Parliament Summit held in Midrand, South Africa in May, the role of lawmakers was emphasized.   During this summit, the PAP President, H.E. Hon. Chief Fortune Charumbira called his counterparts for a result-based approach to the deliberations, to ensure the summit produced concrete solutions to the fight against climate change.

“We need a strong institutional arrangement out of this summit and leadership must play a big role in this. Without leadership, nothing will be achieved. We need to interrogate why Developed countries are not respecting what they committed for” said Hon. Chief Fortune Charumbira, President PAP.

Speaking at the event, Dr. Mithika Mwenda, the Executive Director of PACJA, emphasized the role of the Pan African Legislative Assembly in domesticating climate policies and holding their governments accountable through legal frameworks.

He called legislators to take the lead and support their respective countries in implementing climate change-related laws and policies in the context of the continent currently facing the adverse impacts of Climate change.

“This is a critical moment for Africa and the World, as we face the unprecedented challenges of the climate crisis. We urge our leaders to act with courage and ambition to uphold the principles of climate justice and human rights” commended Dr. Mithika.

Dr. Mithika also called for developed countries to fulfill the commitment they made to address adverse climate change impacts Africa is traversing through providing adequate finance, technology, and capacity building to enable Africa to adapt to the impacts of climate change and pursue low-carbon development pathways.

As we head to COP28, it’s important to note that Parliaments and parliamentary organizations played a role throughout the negotiations on the post-2015 development framework and according to United Nations, the institutions strongly advocated for the inclusion of SDGs related to democratic governance. Goal 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals is dedicated to taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Speaking to the congregation, H.E. The President of the Republic of Kenya, William Ruto who graced the summit, recognized the role of the Pan African Parliament in representing “the full range of African voices, the diversity of African ideas and the variety of African insights interact and generate the principles and knowledge that need to inform our endeavours to give present and future generations a prosperous and secure Africa and a liveable planet”.

“The need to urgently undertake a fundamental shift in understanding Africa’s global role is overwhelmingly evident on the subject of climate change. At the moment, conversations about climate change in Africa focus on the fact that Africa’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is minimal at only 4 percent, yet the impact of consequent climate change on our people is huge. The discourse also mainly focuses on the important questions of compensation for loss and damage, and funding for adaptation and resilience,” stressed H.E President William Ruto.

What you need to know about the International Day of Parliaments

 According to the UN, the International Day of Parliamentary is celebrated every year on 30 June, the date in 1889 on which the IPU was founded. The Day was established in 2018 through a United Nations General Assembly Resolution. Currently, IPU membership is made up of 179 national parliaments out of the 193 countries in the world.

IPU was created by a small group of parliamentarians in 1889 to promote democracy, equality, human rights, development, and peace.

As far as Climate change is concerned, the IPU helps parliaments make progress on the Paris Agreement as well as other climate treaties, accelerate decarbonization and reduce the carbon footprint within parliaments themselves through its research, tools, and meetings. As a first step, they can decarbonize their place of work by putting in place the IPU’s 10 actions for greener parliaments.

The author of this blog is Jackline Kalunge, Intern in Communications, PACJA