Namibia's president 'committed to green hydrogen program'
Nangolo Mbumba, President of Namibia, spoke to DW during the Hamburg Sustainability Conference. In a wide-ranging interview, he discusses Namibia's relationship with Germany, and how the southern African nation can capitalize on its energy and mining boom.
DW: Your country is facing a devastating drought at the moment. Are you surprised how devastating it has been in the region?
President Nangolo Mbumba: Yes, truly devastated. Usually, we have drought because lack of grains, lack of food. But this time it is strongly indicating how parched, how dry the soil has become. And the only way left was to make sure that we deliver water by trucks. And that is the driest type of drought you can have when you can no longer deliver water to your people.
One of the responses to climate change has been developing green hydrogen projects, like the Hyphen Project you are developing in Namibia with the Germans. How do you respond to critics who say the project is creating new problems, including environmental problems?
We need to decarbonize the world. How? By using the available energies from the sun and from wind. We have the highest rate of sun rays because we have a desert country. We have the water, we have the harbors and companies. I was talking to the chancellor of Germany, and right now he is saying they are committed to buy the green hydrogen or ammonia from us.
We are committed to this program. For the first time, we have our engineers and architects and technical people coming to German universities to learn how to handle those........
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