Commissioner for Climate Change Department, Margaret Athieno Mwebesa and State Minister for Environment, Beatrice Atim Anywar during a press briefing yesterday
The Minister of State for Environment, Beatrice Atim Anywar has called for tougher approaches in fighting the climate change crisis.
The minister made these remarks at yesterday’s side-event at the Post COP 29 forum during the ongoing Uganda Water at Environment Week (UWEWK2025) held at the Ministry of Water and Environment headquarters in Luzira, Kampala.
“We need bolder action in combating the climate crisis. It’s high time we took COP seriously and scale up our interventions,” Anywar said.
Since its launch in 2018, UWEWK has served as a platform for knowledge exchange, advocacy and dialogue to improve the country’s water and environment resources with this year’s event organized under the theme; ‘Water and environment resource for enhanced resilience and improved income and livelihoods’.
The forum served as a stock-taking engagement drawing from the discussions held at the COP29 held last year in Buku, Azerbaijan, where Uganda thematically focused on the 8 negotiation areas of Adaption and Loss & Damage, Mitigation and Article 6, Climate Finance, Technology Development and transfer, Capacity building, Gender and Climate change, agriculture, and Legal and compliance.
The legislator further used the opportunity to reiterate government’s commitment towards climate action amidst global fears of severe climate change effects and finance shortfalls.
“We are aware of the injustices happening to us developing countries. We (Africa) are endowed with natural biodiversity that helps clean up the mess from industrialized countries,” She said.
She added, “While COP29 saw renewed commitments towards the long-standing $100 billion annual climate finance target, the main substantive outcome of COP29 was named the “Baku Climate Unit Pact”, comprising; New global climate finance goal to raise at least $1.3 trillion per year for developing countries and on developed countries to lead the mobilization of at least $300b by 2035. While this marks progress, it remains insufficient compared to the actual financing needs for adaptation and mitigation.”
Speaking at the same event, Buyika Lawrence Songa, the chairperson Parliamentary Forum on Climate Change, emphasized the need to stay ‘on track’ and focus on achieving COP29 targets.
“This is very important for our reflection on what we set out to do in Azerbaijan. Based on the outcomes, we need to adjust and see how we can fix them in order to achieve our priorities. On financing, it is important to try to avoid non transparent middle-men and try to get our funding directly,” he said.
The Co-chair of Environment and Climate Change Donor Partner Group, Ole Dahl Rasmussen reaffirmed donors’ commitment towards this goal and praised Uganda’s efforts.
“We are generally satisfied with the outcome of COP29 especially due to the new climate finance goal. With that goal, we committed to a significant overall increase to international efforts in the developing countries,” Rasmussen said.
He added, “there is still a lot of work to be done but fortunately, we are already working together to put in place systems that will not only enable Uganda adapt to climate change but also allow these newly created funding streams to flow into the country.”
The Commissioner Climate Change, Margaret Athieno Mwebesa who also doubles as the UNFCC National focal person, also appreciated the breakthroughs garnered in COP29 and commended the partnerships the government has made over the years.
“There were some breakthroughs made like in the case of Article 6 about the rules on carbon trading. As a country we are getting ready to have regulations moving forward,” she said.
She added, “Uganda is very wealthy when it comes to natural resources thus, we are in a very good position to earn from our natural wealth. We need to come together and fight.”
Uganda Water and Environment Week 2025 background
The Uganda Water and Environment Week (UWEWK) is a weeklong event that is organized annually by the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) and partners through the Water Resources Institute (WRI). The event has evolved and grown to become the flagship program for advocacy, influencing, information sharing, and learning within the water and environment spectrum. Since its inception in 2018, the event seeks to contribute to the attainment of sustainable socio-economic transformation and achieving Ugandan National Development Plan and vision 2040. It also seeks to contribute to achievement of international agenda such as 2030 Agenda, Africa Agenda 2063, Water Action Decade, global agenda for environment conservation and climate change among others. UWEWK therefore provides an interface between sector actors and other stakeholders to exchange knowledge and information on management and development water, environment and related natural resources in general and across various sectors of the economy.
On Monday,17th March, the State Minister for Environment Hon. Beatrice Anywar, and the Permanent Secretary Dr. Alfred Okot Okidi and other top officials of the Ministry of Water and Environment welcomed the chief guest Hon. Dr. Justine Lumumba who represented the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Thomas Tayebwa, at the opening ceremony.
The opening ceremony was also attended by representatives of various ministries, departments and agencies, civil society, development partners, non-governmental organisations, academia, media, banking institutions, cultural institutions, diplomatic mission, among others.
