The government has established
that it needs massive financial support to the tune of over $1 billion annually
by 2030 coupled with technological support to address climate change
adaptation, a feature also approved by the Tanzania technological needs
assessment 2010.
The technological support
includes concrete actions on adaptation consistent with the NCSS commitment by
the international community both through the convention process and bilateral
engagement to support national efforts for climate resilient economic growth.
Richard Muyungi of the Vice
President’s Office United Republic of Tanzania said last week that about 8% of
the land area of Dar es Salaam 140,000 people and economic assets worth more
than $170 million are below the 10m contour line in potentially vulnerable areas,
with 31,000 people considered at risk.
“By 2030, without adaptation,
this will increase to more than 100,000 people and over $400 million assets and
rise further in later years. We are worried because large proportion of GDP is
associated with climate sensitive sectors, particularly agriculture whereas
rainfall decreases by up to 15% and there is no adaptation average maize yields
could decrease by up to 16% by 2030 a loss of around 1 million tonnes a year
and 25 - 35% by 2050 equivalent to 2 to 2.7 million tonnes per year,” Muyungi
affirmed.
He said current climate change,
extreme events, droughts and floods, sea level rise, already lead to major
economic costs with some individual annual events economically costing in
excess of 1% of GDP, these occur regularly, reducing long-term growth and
affecting millions of people and livelihoods.
He however said that these issues
are being addressed by specific actions through national budget, NAPA, GEF
Support, bilateral, implementation of National Climate Change Strategy
including Mitigation opportunities.
Others are joining the global
efforts through UNFCCC, Mobilization of institutions, actors and resources for
paradigm shift to undertake both adaptation and mitigation actions in the
context of sustainable development.
He added that in terms of actions
to foster resilience include
mainstreaming into various national development endeavor at all levels,
through mainstreaming into the education system, research for example the
Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) Carbon Monitoring Center; enhancing
early Warning Capability under Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA), awareness
programmes at all levels, engagement of the Youth, diplomats and gender
consideration, leading Africa in UNFCCC CAHOSCC, AMCEN, SBSTA, LDCs, G77 and
China to demand for more actions on mitigation to reduce vulnerability.
Current emission reduction
pledges is only 17% of the required reduction levels of between 25-40% below
1990 levels for developed countries and serious deviation from Business as
usual for developing countries.
He queries that what then do we
need to be discussing to better facilitate climate resilient economic growth
for Tanzania? In response he suggests that it needs ensuring energy security
for development in changing climate – a dramatic shift towards Natural Gas use.
“At what costs will this happen? How does it compare with other available
sources of energy such as coal as 1.2 billion tonnes of potential coal reserves
will it be possible to ensure that the population with access to electricity is
increased from the current 36% to 50% in 2020 and 75 to 100% in 2030 by
focusing on renewable energies?,” he further queries.
He said the opportunities for a
strong, resilient growth within the changing climate include large scale
programme for transformational shift towards the use of natural gas, total
avoidance of charcoal use in cities and urban areas, as Dar es Salaam alone uses
about 200,000 bags of charcoal.
