Botswana is a low greenhouse gas emitting country, contributing an estimated 0.019% to global emissions. Most of the country’s emissions come from the energy sector, highlighting the need for emissions reduction through transitioning Botswana’s economy to renewable energy. The country’s climate is semi-arid to arid with acute water scarcity and fragile ecosystems that are highly susceptible to climate change. This makes adaptation a key policy priority for the country especially in a context of resource scarcity.

The total estimated budget for implementing the country’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution is US$6.2 billion with US$2.5 billion and US$3.7 billion earmarked for adaptation and mitigation respectively.

Given the country’s strategic policy focus on reducing vulnerability to climate change impacts, virtually all domestic money to combat climate change is intended to contribute to the adaptation budget. Consequently, all the country’s key legal and policy frameworks including National Climate Change Strategy for Botswana (2018);

National Climate Change Action Plan for Botswana (2019); National Adaptation Plan (2019) and the Botswana Climate Change Response Policy (2021) identify the crucial and indispensable role private sector investment will play in the country’s future mitigation efforts.

The new government in Botswana has committed to diversifying the country’s energy mix and to do so through advancing renewables especially solar and wind technologies. The country’s stability and high sovereign credit rating would enable the country to provide commercial risk guarantees. The country has committed to

increase renewable energy usage from the current 1% to 30% by 2030 and up to 50% by 2036.

Challenges and prospects

Botswana has one of the best solar irradiation metrics in the world. It is also politically and economically stable with an excellent sovereign credit rating. However, a few challenges remain:

• Inadequate institutional capacity to secure financing for development of Renewables.

• The country has overall suppressed demand for power given its small population. The current 600MW output almost wholly caters for the country’s energy needs. Before investing in any additional output, a buyer market must first be secured. Fortunately, the ZIZABONA grid connectivity has been

  resuscitated, thanks to the Green Grids Initiative and other partners, which means surplus power will be easily transmitted to where it’s needed in the region.

• The Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority is still to develop a feed-in-tariff policy to enable IPPs to profit off their generation.

Key outlook for Botswana

The Parliamentarians for Climate Finance project’s design to help in country parliamentarians to develop a pipeline of viable projects and to engage investors with a view to removing impediments to the flow of investment capital will be a game changer in Botswana’s renewable energy landscape.