Mining 2026

ZAMBIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Harriet Mdala, Natasha Lungu, Samuel Muleya and Chanda Musonda-Chiluba, MAY & Company

3. Climate Change, Energy Transition and Sustainable Development in Mining 3.1 Climate Change Effects Zambia has undertaken several initiatives to address climate change and its impact on the mining industry. Zambia signed and ratified the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the “UNFCCC”) on 21 September 2016 and 9 Decem - ber 2016, respectively. The overall objective of the two agreements is to stabilise the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change. In 2024, the Green Economy and Climate Change Act No 18 of 2024 (the “Climate Change Act”) was passed into law by the Zambian Parliament. The Climate Change Act seeks to, among other things, transpose the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement into domestic law. The Climate Change Act also seeks to regulate carbon markets and provide environmental and social safeguards for climate change actions and establish a Climate Change Fund. Additionally, the Climate Change Act establishes the Green Economy and Climate Change Council, specifies GHG emis - sion standards and establishes a greenhouse inven - tory management system. It also includes provisions on carbon stock management, registration of verifiers and enforcement provisions. Furthermore, prior to the introduction of the Climate Change Act, the Zambian Cabinet approved the dec - laration of critical minerals such as copper, cobalt and lithium, among others, as strategic minerals in 2023. Under this initiative, the government resolved to tran - sition the country to a green economy. This led to an enhanced mobilisation of financial resources, includ - ing in the public sector budget. 3.2 Climate Change Legislation and Proposals Related to Mining It is intended that the Climate Change Act will act as a mechanism for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Its main features are climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction; cli -

mate change mitigation; low-emission development; a green economy; and related actions. Some of the salient provisions of the Climate Change Act are as follows. • Section 10 of the Climate Change Act places a duty on the Minister of Green Economy and Environment to develop a National Adaptation Plan and a National Mitigation Plan, which will be reviewed every five years. This Section transposes Article 4 (1)(b) of the UNFCCC, which deals with commitments of the parties, requires the parties to formulate, implement, publish and regularly update national programmes that contain measures to mitigate climate change and to facilitate adequate adaptation to climate change into domestic law. • Section 4 (2)(l) of the Climate Change Act places responsibility for overseeing the revision and updating of the nationally determined contribu - tions (NDCs) on the Department of Green Economy and Climate Change in the Ministry of Green Economy. This is similar to Article 4 (2) of the Paris Agreement, which enables parties to determine the efforts that each of them will take to achieve the objectives of the agreement. These efforts are referred to as NDCs and need to be prepared sequentially. • Article 6 (2) of the Paris Agreement introduced the concept of internationally transferable mitigation outcomes (ITMOs), which have been described as a co-operative approach that allows countries to cut their GHG emissions by investing in projects that reduce GHG emissions in other countries. The Climate Change Act seeks to extend the domes - tication of the notion of ITMO to apply to projects other than those covered by the Forests Act and/ or the Forests Carbon Stock Management Regula - tions. • Under Article 7 of the UNFCCC, the parties agreed to adopt regular reports on the implementation of the UNFCCC and to publish these reports. This reporting requirement was enhanced under Article 13 of the Paris Agreement, which established an enhanced transparency framework. The Climate Change Act has established mechanisms for col - lecting and storing data on climate change.

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