The Earth is our precious home, and therefore we all suffer together from the effects of climate change. In recent years, Tanzania has suffered through a number of climate relate disasters, the mountainous and densely forested terrain have been through droughts, flooding, widespread crop failures and the population suffer from intensifying disease exposure. With a total area of 945,087 square kilometres and with an estimated population of 53 million, Tanzania is one of the largest countries in East Africa and unfortunately one of the least developed making us more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. It’s an issue because it’s mainly threatening water availability and food security for millions of poor people and we don’t have the financing to adapt.
Tanzania, in the last 40 years, has experienced severe and recurring droughts with devastating effects to agriculture, water and energy sectors. According to the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) Index, Tanzania ranks as the 34th most vulnerable and 54th least ready to adapt to climate change. More than 70% of all natural disasters in Tanzania are climate change related and are linked to recurrent floods and droughts. With 90% of the population dependent on agriculture and/or agricultural activities, the effects of climate change needed to be addressed and handled. Tanzania published its National Climate Change Strategy in 2012, its goal is to address both adaptation and mitigation in line with the country’s vision for sustainable development. Tanzania has recognized the adverse impacts of natural disasters and climate change and has put in place various policies to address the challenges. The key policy documents are the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA 2007), Tanzania National Development Plan (2016/17- 2020/21), National Climate Change Strategy 2012, and the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), 2015. These policies include strategies to improve the energy availability, to reduce deforestation, improve energy diversification and efficiency of the major energy consuming sectors, including, power generation, manufacturing, and transportation. With over 33.5 million hectares of forestry reserves and sizable rural land under forest cover, Tanzania’s commitment to the conservation of its forests is important, considering that these contribute to sustainable development and act as a management resolution for greenhouse gases produced elsewhere. There’s a urban resilience program where they educate the population and teach them how they’re going to adapt to the consequences of climate change. The policies provide strategic interventions to ensure that the communities and the nation as a whole benefit from such global services.
Tanzania has agreed on the most important international agreement on climate change which is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 1994 and its complementary protocol – The Kyoto Protocol of 1997. Tanzania has signed and agreed on many international agreements on environment and climate change, like the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Convention on the Control of Trans Boundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal (Basel), Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) , Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (Vienna Convention) and the Protocol on Bio-safety (Cartagena Protocol). While UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are directly focusing on climate change like reducing the emissions of GHGs, the rest do not only focus on climate change alone, but more on environmental issues in general as well. Tanzania has signed and ratified the Paris Agreement, and they’ve also submitted their INDC to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015. Under its INDC, Tanzania will reduce greenhouse gas emissions economy wide between 10-20% by 2030 even though their amount of GHGs are negligible. As, the previous president of Tanzania said “we necessarily need to adapt. Adaptation and meeting the costs of response measures requires financing.” Tanzania has thankfully been receiving aid, around 300 million USD from the Green Climate Fund to support our policies to counter climate change allowing us to adapt, build resilience and achieve sustainable development.
Tanzania has contributed very little to global warming compared to other developed countries like the United States of America, but it will be affected severely by climate change. While we has a role to play in the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, our major focus is on issues of adaptation. Therefore in order to address the challenges of adaptation to climate change, continuous substantial financial resources are needed. At the same time, as our minister of the state, January Makamba, says “ Tanzania will continue to support other signatories of the accord to reduce the effects brought by climate change; we must unite globally to minimize the effects of global warming”. All in all, to be able to reduce climate change, it requires the commitment and participation of all countries.