STATEMENT BY HON.
JANUARY Y. MAKAMBA (MP), MINISTER OF STATE, VICE
PRESIDENT’S OFFICE (UNION AND ENVIRONMENT), AT THE HIGH LEVEL SEGMENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE CONFERENCE (COP22/CMP12)
MARRAKECH, MOROCCO:
16TH NOVEMBER, 2016
Your
Majesty King Mohammed the VI, King of the Kingdom of Morroco;
Your Excellency, Mr.
Salaheddine Mezouar, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Morocco and
President of COP 22/CMP 12 and CMA1;
Ms. Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change;
Excellences, Heads of Delegations;
Mr. President;
Distinguished Participants;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Allow
me to convey warm and fraternal greetings from H.E. Dr. John Pombe Joseph Magufuli,
President of the United Republic of Tanzania. Let me thank the Government and
People of Morocco for successfully organizing this COP 22 and for the
hospitality extended to my delegation since our arrival. We also the UNFCCC Secretariat
for the excellent facilities put at our disposal for this Conference.
Mr. President;
We
welcome the entry into force of the Paris Agreement and commend all Parties
that have ratified the same. Tanzania is in the final process of ratification. This
is indeed a historic COP as we are witnessing unprecedented solidarity of the
global community in a pace never seen before. It would be very remiss of me not
to congratulate France for its successful Presidency of COP 21. We must now
match the speed of ratification with concrete actions toward actual
implementation of Paris Agreement.
Mr. President;
The challenges of climate change to my country
are real, clear and present. Climate
change threatens the very existence and survival of and entire utilities we
depend on for our development. Understanding our vulnerabilities, we have been working together with
international community to address this challenge while recognizing the
historical perspective, to be able to
forge a fair, balanced but differentiated approach.
At national level, we have been taking ambitious
steps to address climate change. Just before the Paris Conference we submitted
our Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), which reflect our
commitment and determination to collaborate with international community in
addressing this challenge. Through our INDCs, we intend to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions economy wide in the context of sustainable development between 10
- 20% by 2030 relative to the business as usual scenario. This is a remarkable contribution in our part
taking into account that our per capita emissions are less that 1 tone per
capita annually.
As indicated in our
INDCs, we expect that the needed technological and financial support to the
tune of USD 60 billion by 2030 for mitigation and USD 500 million USD annually for
adaptation will be availed to be able to meet our
contributions and to pursue the development trajectory we want.
With 48.1 million
hectares of forested land, we have an estimated total of 9.032 trillion tones
of carbon stock, making the country a net carbon sink. We are committed to
continuously conserve these biomass assets. We are also committed to support
the global efforts to address mitigation provided that the mechanisms that will
be put in place ensure that it's the countries and communities that are
custodian of these forests that benefit rather than the multinational foreign
companies.
We have launched the
enhanced national wide tree planting campaign which is poised to increase our
sequestration potential. However, a massive mobilization of resources is
required to enable us attain this goal and for the sake of implementation of
the Paris agreement the resources for implementing this
must be provided by the international community.
Mr. President;
Our
development plan sets our national priority to explore and use its existing
resource to move to a middle income country by 2025. The challenge we face is how
to address climate change and remain focused on our agenda. The costs of
adaptation and the costs of participating effectively in mitigation need
serious international support as agreed in Paris. It is important that here in
Marrakesh we unlock the way and means to achieve that. Money
seems to be out there but the beaurocratic and procedural processes we are
putting in place in all our funds such as the GCF, LDCF, AF and GEF are making
it impossible to access these resources in time and at the quantities that can
make a difference. We need to change this.
I
wish to once again pledge Tanzania’s readiness to work with the international community
to address the challenges of climate change in in the context of the Paris
agreement within the agreed principles and obligations as we strive to keep the
global temperature well below two degrees for our very survival and that of the
generations to come.
Mr. President;
I want to end by
quoting someone wise who said:
“…We have not
inherited this planet from our ancestors, but we have borrowed it from our
children”.
Indeed, we have an obligation, a duty, to hand it over
to them, at least minimally, the way we found it.
Your Majesty, Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies
and Gentlemen;
I thank you for your
kind attention.
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