Turn carbon dioxide into a business opportunity: Jafo

Dar es Salaam. Why have we reached here? Experts in environmental issues and climate change say the lack of sufficient and timely rainfall is the cause of drought and its main cause is climate change.

Human activities, which are said to be a major cause of climate change, have been producing carbon dioxide which is the source of temperature increase, floods, drought, sea level rise, hurricanes and other disasters.

Those professional statements are supported by the Minister of State in the Vice President’s Office (Union and Environment), Dr Selemani Jafo, who says that haphazard tree felling is one of the factors that contribute to the destruction of the environment.

“The challenge of climate change is great. It has caused drought as we see in the districts of Longido, Kiteto and Simanjiro, where livestock are dying for lack of food, the situation is not good in those districts,” says the minister.

“When environmental destruction occurs, it affects other areas as well, even the snow on Mount Kilimanjaro is melting. In Tanzania, we have prepared regulations and guidelines to deal with this. We are also going to promote carbon dioxide business.

“It will be an opportunity in the forests, but also for those growing cashews, avocados and coffee will also be able to deal with the carbon dioxide business. It will help the citizens to think about conserving the environment, apart from the trees, they will also get the benefit of carbon dioxide, when they destroy the trees they will also miss the financial opportunity,” he says.

What you are needed to do in this business is to conserve natural forests and the environment. Natural forests have a great capacity to absorb and store carbon dioxide and poisonous air.

Some have benefited from the program coordinated by the Carbon Tanzania Institute. According to an article published by the Government’s Habari Leo newspaper on January 5, 2021, at least 21,000 residents of eight villages in Tanganyika District, Katavi Region, have been paid Sh380 million through Carbon Tanzania under a project called Ntakata Mountains Redd Plus Project.

According to the article, “Residents of the district have prevented the destruction of the forests they have preserved to help them to conserve the environment including absorbing carbon dioxide and poisonous air in the space of our country and abroad.”

The feature says that as a result of the conservation, the respective villages have harvested a total of 82,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and sold it for Sh250 million and that with the harvesting of those tonnes, its sales have not even reached half of 270,000 tonnes that are yet to be sold.

Mr Jafo says the destruction of the environment is still taking place in the country, a situation that causes drought and other effects including the diminishing of water sources.

“We need to have joint cooperation to counter climate change, our colleagues in natural resources have the responsibility to protect and conserve forests, so make sure they are protected and taken care of, trees are not cut down haphazardly.

“We are also cooperating with our colleagues from the ministry of Water to ensure that the areas of the valleys and water sources are not encroached on or destroyed, the Energy ministry should be creative in how we will get alternative energy at a cheap price to reduce the use of firewood and charcoal,” said the minister.

He says joint cooperation in conserving the environment is the only way to counter drought, insisting on the campaign to plant 1.5 million trees in each council and 276 million acrooss the country, which will contribute to mitigating the challenge.

The Director of the National Environmental Management Council (Nemc), Dr Samwel Gwamaka, says the destruction of the environment has caused the entire ecology to deteriorate.

There are many things that have caused the destruction of the environment, we have seen in the Lake Region that deforestation is rampant, the wave of destruction has reached the regions of Lindi and Mtwara and other parts of the country.

“Energy use and industrial development have led to the production of carbon, many cars use diesel and emit carbon dioxide, all of which contribute to the destruction of the environment,” he says.

Dr Gwamaka says wild fires also cause forest destruction, citing the recent incident on Mount Kilimanjaro being destroyed and the informal clearing of farms by burning.

“All of this increases the amount of carbon dioxide that changes the direction of the seasons, in the past there were no flooding events, but now they are happening greatly because of the destruction, there is no vegetation, when it rains it does not penetrate the earth to preserve water.

“Planting trees that are not environmentally friendly absorb a lot of water, many forests including those of wooden trees these days you can’t even find monkeys on them, in the past they lived in those trees, their excrements were treated as fertilizer, now the destruction is extreme, causing drought, in short the whole ecology has been destroyed,” says Mr Gwamaka.

Energy issue

Energy Deputy minister Stephen Byabato says the situation is not good in the electricity sources, where water levels are decreasing every day due to drought.

He says the decreased water levels in the electricity sources have been alarming, causing a decrease of 160 megawatts in our national grid.

According to the deputy minister, all water and gas energies should be prioritized to get reliable energy since all the sources are interdependent.

“We have to have mixed energy. We need to have water, gas, wind, solar and coal energies. These are different ways getting energy. For example, the drought has now caused water levels to decrease, so we use more gas, when there is water, we reduce the use of gas and instead we use more water because we get it for free, gas is bought.

“You can’t exert more weight on the use of gas because it’s expensive, but also on water because sometimes its levels are low, so we use both.

“We have our big Mwalimu Nyerere project, when completed, it will produce 2,115 Megawatts for us, but at the same time we are getting about 1,100 Megawatts from gas currently, so they will be interdependent,” he says.

The deputy minister says that efforts are being made to use coal energy. However, the African Regional Director of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), Mr Silas Osang, says that energy is a challenge because it is difficult to get investment in building coal mills to generate electricity,

However, he says that coal will close the gap of energy shortage, stressing that Africa has not polluted the climate as it is on other continents.

“When the Europeans were using coal, we were not, now we want to start using it they are stopping us. But when the war broke out in Ukraine, Germany imported coal eight times more than it used to do so from South Africa. When we want to use it, they say it pollutes.

However, Mr Osang says, “this is dirty energy, I think we are late in coal and the opportunities are no longer there. A reliable energy source is water or gas. Both sources have their benefits and challenges, especially in these times when the world is facing the challenge of climate change.”

What should be done

In Zimbabwe, soon after the end of the most severe drought, a meeting of international researchers initiated a plan to plant fast-growing trees in dry areas. The goal was to address the challenge of cooking energy that was 80 percent being depended upon.

Here in the country between 1988 and 2017, the late Chairman of IPP Group of Companies, Mr Regnald Mengi, launched a campaign for planting more than 27 million trees in Kilimanjaro Region.

The study on the “perspective of the forestry sector 2020-2040” has found out that reducing carbon dioxide emissions depends on the ability of forests to absorb carbon and increase the production of new innovative products that can replace high-production materials used in construction, clothing and the generation of energy.

In that sense, many climate change experts encourage the restoration of natural vegetation as the right and sure way to counter the current situation.

Livestock

When the advice is like that in the forests, the herders have been motivated to take various measures to get out of the drought that causes their livestock to have no pastures and water.

The National Chairman of Pastoralists Association, Mr Jeremiah Wambura, says one pastoralist with 450 cows, can sell some livestock to serve the few he can afford.

“We provide education to pastoralists to sell some of their livestock to reduce food demand. But they can also use that money to build a water well for their livestock,” he says

“When the rains start falling , a lot of grass grows, it is important to harvest grass and save it for future use, so we continue to educate them on the precautions that should be taken,” said Mr Wambura.

Water

A water expert from the Dar es Salaam Water Institute, Dr. Adam Karia, says that whenever the drr season comes, many people point the accusing finger at the Government but they forget that they could have avoided the situation if they had put introduced a system to conserve water.

“We can still harvest a lot of water at the household level and stored well. Experts are there to teach people the best way to preserve water,” says Dr. Karia.

Regarding major joint projects, Dr Karia says the Kidunda Dam, which has been under discussion for a long time, will be a permanent solution to the water challenge because it will store a lot of rainwater instead of letting it get lost into the sea.

“This project is very important, it will help make water available all the time to the people and end these problems we are going through now,” he said.