Alarm as campaigns skip climate change

Dar es Salaam. Environmental experts have expressed disappointment over political parties’ silence on environment and climate change issues in ongoing election campaign saying they have lost a crucial opportunity of addressing the concern of global magnitude.

They argue that no one can successifuly tackle poverty without strategising on how to deal with environment and climate change issues.

The experts interviewed by The Citizen On Sunday feel that there is little mention about environment and climate change in the election manifestos.

A spot-check in election manifestos of the three leading parties of CCM, Chadema and ACT-Wazalendo that have fielded presidential candidates show that with the exception of the ruling party, the two others have remained silent on environment and climate change.

CCM has only dedicated half a page in its election manifesto explaining the impacts already brought by climate change and efforts that the ruling party has put in place for climate change adaptation and mitigation for the next five years. The rest is history.

Mr Alais Ole Morindat, a consultant with the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a policy and action research organisation promoting sustainable development and linking local priorities to global challenges, said it was a lost opportunity for the parties’ failure to address environment and climate change.

“This is a lost opportunity because they are talking about poverty eradication which cannot be achieved without tackling problems facing the environment and climate change,” said Mr Ole Morindat.

He said issues of environment and climate change should have been among top agenda of political parties’ election manifestos because millions of Tanzanians both in rural and urban areas depend on natural ecosystems that are prone to be affected by the changing environment and climate.

UN Sustainable goals

The environmental expert said since environment and climate change featured prominently in the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), leaders of political parties campaigning for the presidential race were supposed to make environment and climate change their number one agenda.

The SDGs are a new, universal set of goals, targets and indicators that UN member states will be expected to use to frame their development agenda and political policies over the next 15 years.

The SDGs follow and expand on the eight millennium development goals (MDGs), which were agreed by governments in 2000 and are due to expire at the end of this year.

“I don’t know why they are not addressing these issues. And I am appealing to them not to finalise their election campaign without addressing environment and climate change,” said Mr Ole Morindat.

Mr Deodatus Mfugale, an environmental journalist based in Dar es Salaam, said: “Our political parties are not doing justice to the public by failing to say how they are going to tackle climate change - how they are going to help communities adapt to the effects of climate change and how they are going to cut the amount of emissions that we produce.”

“And the price of this omission is high -- think of the floods in Kilosa that happened more than five years ago and rendered more than 200 families homeless,” said Mr Mfugale, adding that todate they have not been properly resettled because the government had no funds.

Example in a real life

He said there were a lot of examples which showed that the current and past governments have done little to address environmental issues.

For example, he said, Lake Jipe on the Tanzanian side was disappearing slowly without government taking any action to combat the invasive plant species that have covered it by more than three quarters now.

“The Kenya side of the lake is fine and fishing is going on. Ironically fishermen in Jipe Village on the Tanzania side have had to relocate elsewhere in order to make a living,” said Mr Mfugale.

By May, this year, many villages in Kilwa District of Lindi Region were surviving on food handouts after their crops were first killed by a long severe drought and after planting the second time, the crops were washed away by heavy floods all due to climate change, he said.

Mr Mfugale said this is the price communities have to pay because politicians fail to do justice to climate change and environment matters.

He said he still remembered promises made by the outgoing President about addressing water spillage from the Indian Ocean that flows onto some streets in Pangani township when the tide is high, due to rising sea levels caused by climate change.

“Nothing has been done... And the price of this omission is high,” he said.

Mr Mfugale said towards the end of this month the UN will endorse the 17 SDGs, eight of which specifically focus on environmental issues.

“Our politicians are certainly far behind when it comes to environment and climate change issues,” he said, adding that Rwanda for example has a national climate change fund which is their own initiative where development partners chipped in.

“Tanzania doesn’t even have a separate budget to deal with climate change much as we experience severe impacts almost every year,” said Mr Mfugale.

He said there was no time for the political parties to address the issue of climate change.

He added: “They might be reminded by someone and put it as an agenda during the remaining time of campaign. Whoever will emerge victorious and for a new government, environment and climate change will not be their priority.”

He said just look at how deforestation, water pollution and poor disposal of solid waste were happening as if there was no government or a particular authority that deals with climate change and environmental management.

An environmental expert working with a UN agency said she would be impressed to hear a manifesto that considers how critical emerging environmental challenges, which have effect to development, including climate change impacts, can be addressed.

She said from the practical side of issues, the government of Tanzania is already having a good number of policies, strategies and plans for climate change which if the incoming government embraces and implements, then the development efforts would well fall into place.

What really matters to people

She said she would consider the presidential candidates to be addressing and reflecting issues that would be close enough to people’s hearts and highest in their list of priorities to ‘excite’ them in giving their votes.

“It takes awareness creation and sensitization to get the general public understand the correlation between climate change and development (a nexus that is very obvious and critical),” said the expert declining to give her name because she was not the spokesperson of the agency.

She added that politicians might not speak of the ‘climate change’ jargon as of now, but would be useful, in the coming future for environmental experts and stakeholders to advise the incoming government on the need to mainstream environmental sustainability and climate change in the list of priorities in their manifesto.

She said climate change is indeed both an environmental as well as a development issue, adding that the poverty-climate change nexus cannot be ignored in country’s development frameworks and planning processes.

“Political will is definitely an important component on climate change to enable translation of plans, strategies and policies into concrete actions - already there are lots of mainstreaming efforts poured into strategies and plans, hence the importance and the need to support actions on the same,” she said.

Another climate change scientist working with an international aid organisation said: “The subjects of environmental conservation and management, as well as of climate change are still given little, if any, attention in our politics. They are not, at least not yet, the election winner.”

The scientist who preferred to remain anonymous because he is not the spokesman of the organisation said climate change was a major socio-economic and developmental concern which has started showing its ramifications that will deepen in years to come.

“Thus we certainly need more political attention and buy in on the need to be more proactive on tackling climate change through adaption and mitigation measures,” he said.

The expert said politicians needed to give it a higher profile because climate change was a serious threat to development efforts.

He said: “Voters have to know that; and the political parties should be in position to explain how or at least what they are going to do, in dealing with this conundrum.”

Mr Gwamaka Mwakyanjala, programme manager with Mama Misitu, an afforestation campaign by the Arusha-based Tanzania Natural Resource Forum, said it was imperative that environment protection was backed up with political statements to ensure adequate understanding and commitment to mitigate and adapt to climate change impact.

“This calls for awareness creation to the parties and politicians at all levels to recognise the need to address climate change issues so that when they’re elected they have a broader understanding on climate and environmental issues,” he said.

All not  lost yet

Mr Mwakyanjala said the Mama Misitu campaign in collaboration with Mjumita, a national network of community groups involved in participatory forest management, have developed campaign materials to engage politicians and wananchi during these political rallies to underscore the need to mainstream environmental issues in their policies and thereby adapt and mitigate climate change issues.

He said despite the fact that there was very little mention about environment and climate change in the political manifestos there was still an opportunity to address these concerns through existing government policies, plans and programmes which have delineated specific actions to address environment and climate change issues.

Ms Rahima Njaidi, Mjumota executive director, said she thought the political parties were not doing justice to environment and climate change.

“By not having vivid sections on environment and climate change in their manifestos it demonstrates their lack of interest to tackle these problems that are detrimental to the people and environment in general,” she said.

Ms Njaidi said with the limited remaining time to the election date on October 25, the politicians could still address environment and climate change issues in their public rallies.

“But this can only happen if they are really serious and committed to addressing this issue,” said Ms Njaidi, adding that Mjumita has developed a forest manifesto that calls upon political parties and their aspirants to make sure forest is conserved and environmental effects are minimized.

She said the manifesto also urges the coming government to make sure that all elected people should not allow destruction of forests and they should be taken to task if they do so.