National climate change strategy

Abstract

This Strategy has been developed in response to the growing concern of the negative impacts of climate change and climate variability on the country’s social, economic and physical environment. Its overall aim is to enhance the technical, institutional and individual capacity of the country to address the impacts of climate change. The Strategy covers adaptation, mitigation and cross-cutting interventions that will enable Tanzania the benefit from the opportunities available to developing countries in their efforts to tackle climate change. These opportunities were recognized under the Copenhagen Accord, Cancun Agreement and Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, and they include technology transfer to developing countries under the proposed Technology Mechanism; opportunities offered by the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) Mechanism; and financing for both adaptation and mitigation activities under the proposed ‘Fast Start Climate Fund (of up to USD($) 30 billion in 2012), rising gradually to USD($) 100 billion annually by 2020 and last but not least, the Green Climate Fund, whose aim is to promote the paradigm shift towards low emission and climate resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Climate may change more rapidly than expected and is expected to have complex, long term consequences for the environment, and for our production systems. The adverse impacts of climate change are now far reaching and evident in most parts of the world. It is a serious risk to poverty reduction and threatens to undo decades of development efforts. The impacts are more pronounced in poor countries such as Tanzania with the least adaptive capacity. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, 2007, confirmed an increase of mean temperature of approximately 0.74oC and the sea level rise of about 17cm over the past 100 years. Further projections also provide that sea levels will continue to rise for at least another century due to thermal expansion, even if GHG concentrations could be reduced (Meehl et al., 2007). If GHG concentrations remain at the constant levels of the year 2000, global temperature is likely to rise from 0.3°C to 0.9°C per decade. Mitigation to climate change is therefore of paramount importance to limit adverse temperature increases. It is imperative that the public sector and all major stakeholders have a central role to plan, implement, enforce, monitor and evaluate the implication of climate change through strategic interventions, plans and programmes (Ehler, C.N., et al., 1997), to be implemented at national level.

The development of this strategy responds to the above needs by ensuring that there is more coordination and complementarity between key economic sectors in implementing climate change activities. Moreover this Strategy makes it easier for the country to benefit from global climate change mitigation and adaptation opportunities while contributing significantly to the international community efforts to address climate change. International cooperation as a key tool in addressing climate change challenges at national and regional level. The approach and methodology employed in the development of this Strategy involved extensive literature review and analysis, which was undertaken to identify the linkages between climate change, natural resource management and socio-economic systems. This was augmented by national consultations with various stakeholders ranging from zonal workshops which were undertaken to collect and collate views from individuals at community level, create awareness on climate change impacts and the need for a Strategy to harmonize on-going and future activities. The five zonal workshops were conducted in: Mtwara representing the Southern zone (31 January - 2 February 2011); Arusha representing the Northern zone (6 - 9 March 2011); Mwanza representing the Lake Zone 26 - 29 May 2011); and Mpanda representing the Western zone (20 - 21 June 2011). Additionally, the national stakeholder workshop held in January 2012 with representation from the private sector, public sector, development partners as well as the academia was undertaken to support the validation of the final draft this Strategy. A multidisciplinary team of experts was selected and worked closely with the National Climate Change Focal point, the Division of Environment, Vice President’s Office (VPO) to prepare initial drafts of this Strategy. The team was drawn from various governmental ministerial departments and agencies (MDAs), research institutions, academia and civil society. The team also received, reviewed and integrated stakeholders’ views in the Strategy. The team of experts held a number of working sessions towards accomplishment of this document. The goal of the Strategy is to enable Tanzania to effectively adapt to climate change and participate in global efforts to mitigate climate change with a view to achieving sustainable development in line with the Five Years National Development plan; the Tanzania Development Vision 2025, as well as national sectorial policies. It is expected that this Strategy will reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience to the impacts of climate change. The implementation of the Strategy will enable the country to put in place measures to adapt to climate change and mitigate GHG emissions in order to achieve sustainable national development through climate resilient pathways.