He said developing nations like Zimbabwe were paying for the consequences of those emissions.

He also pledged his country’s cooperation in the fight against climate change.

This comes at a time when environmentalists in Zimbabwe are asking the government to revoke an exploration license recently awarded to a Chinese company to mine coal for energy use.

The Center for Natural Resource Governance is one of the organizations opposing the license. The group promotes green energy, and fears that exploration for coal will cause greater deforestation.

“But the government has been in overdrive mode to promote mining everywhere in order to reach the $12 billion mining economy. In fact, it won’t (make) ecological sense for Zimbabwe to attain a $12 billion economy based on bad models of production, bad consumption, that leaves a huge ecological footprint or a legacy of an ecological disaster. We all understand that mining comes with destruction of forests that serves as carbon sinks and habitat for wildlife,” Nyapokoto said.

Nyapokoto added that Zimbabwe was exploring oil and gas on its northeast border with Zambia, another project that could lead to deforestation.

He said Zimbabwe was in the top 10 of countries of deforestation, with about 300,000 hectares of forests destroyed annually.

But Byron Zamasiya of the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association says Mnangagwa was genuine in his COP26 address about fighting deforestation caused by need for energy.

“So, the issue of fighting deforestation is a key ingredient for addressing greenhouse gas emissions for Zimbabwe. The trees act as a carbon sink since they absorb carbon dioxide, which is a major cause of global warming. What we may want as a country is to make available alternative sources of energy, especially for the rural communities who rely on wood fuel and account for the major part of deforestation. We may also need to promote intensive farming methods as opposed to extensive farming methods that require bigger fields and the clearing of new forests for fields,” Zamasiya said.

The Environmental Management Agency in Zimbabwe has been fining people caught cutting or burning forests. But so far, that hasn’t stopped the trees from coming down.