Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation in Tanzania

One of the biggest challenges of the 21st century is climate change. The accumulation of green house gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) from different sources in the atmospheres promotes global warming (IPCC, 2007). The major source of green house gases in the atmosphere is the burning of fossil fuels that is estimated to contribute about 80%. Land use and land cover change especially forest deforestation and degradation contribute the remaining percentage (Stern, 2007). Among the major impacts of climate change in Tanzania is its influence on ecosystem services. Tanzania is endowed with different ecosystems and thus a variety of ecosystem services. While we are aware of the different ecosystem services that are provided by different ecosystems in Tanzania, knowledge on how these services are vulnerable to climate change and to what extent they will be impacted by climate change are not well known. Based on the above situation the proposed programme aims at investigating how the different ecosystems and associated ecosystem services will be impacted by climate change.