Role of Climate Change Mitigation in Tanzania’s Policy Frameworks

Abstract

There is a broad scientific consensus that the current climate change is highly attributed to human activities. The increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) concentrations in the atmosphere raises the global temperature at very alarming rates. Consequently, the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events, such as floods drought, storms and heat waves have been increasing. Tanzania has been highly vulnerable to climate change due to multiple stresses and low economic, financial and technological adaptive capacity. In order to avoid worst-case scenario, it has been imperative for Tanzania to mainstream the climate change mitigation measures in her policy frameworks as stated in the climate change related Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). The purpose of this paper is to review the extent to which the mainstreaming of climate change mitigation measures has influenced the formulation of policy frameworks. However, the mainstreaming of some of the nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) is facing some challenges such as shortage of fund, poor governance and corruption.  It is important to note that the amount of GHGs emitted by developing countries (non Annex 1) is less than 3 percent of the global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels. Nevertheless, there is a need for Tanzania to continue undertaking mitigation measures in order to circumvent worst-case scenarios of climate change.

Keywords: GHGs, climate change, climate change mitigation, policy frameworks, MEAs, sector-based policies.