The government has said climate change is poised to undermine national efforts to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and put overall poverty reduction efforts in jeopardy.

In the picture you see Dr Batilda Buriani, the Minister of State in the Vice President's Office (Environment).

According to the her the national economy is highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change and extreme weather events which are already vivid. Buriani said several current droughts in the past few years have triggered the recent devastating power crisis.

She said recent temperature measurements from 21 meteorological stations in the country have shown a steady increase in temperature for the past 30 years.

”Due to the increasing temperatures, the adverse impacts are now felt in all sectors of the economy, and are threatening human life,” she added.

The extreme drop of water levels in Lake Victoria among others in recent years, and the most dramatic receding of Lake Rukwa in about 50 years, are associated at least in part with climate change, the minister explained.

Dr Buriani called for appropriate plans, programmes and community adaptation strategies at both local and national level in order to reduce the negative impacts of climate change.

She asserted that while Tanzania’s contribution to greenhouse gas emission is negligible in global terms, the government considers the new ’Reduced Emissions for Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ initiative as a viable option that can allow the country to manage its forests and woodlands on a sustainable basis.

Forests cover around 30 per cent of the Earths total land surface (nearly 4 billion hectares). Experts say forests provide valuable ecosystem services and goods, serve as a habitat for a wide range of flora and fauna, and hold a significant standing stock of global carbon.

Deforestation, mainly conversion of forests for agriculture activities, has been estimated at an alarming rate of 13 million hectares per year in the period 1990-2005. Deforestation results in immediate release of carbon stored in trees as CO2 emissions.

It is estimated that deforestation contributed globally to approximately 20 per cent of annual greenhouse gas emissions in the 1990s.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fourth assessment report, reducing and/or preventing deforestation is the mitigation option with the largest and most immediate carbon stock impact in the short term