Climate change

Courtesy : www.un.org

The Department of Meteorology, as National Focal Point for the UNFCCC has coordinated several climate change projects and programmes. Some,
which we think can contribute to the 14th session of the United Nations
Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), are summarized here
below.
· The greenhouse gas Inventory Project
Uganda carried out a National Inventory of Sources and Sinks of
Greenhouse gases in 1993 with funding from the GEF. The project was
implemented by UNEP and coordinated by the Department of Meteorology.
The Inventory was partly updated in 1995 with funding from the United
States Government under the United States Country Studies programme.
The Inventory gives a comprehensive list of emissions of greenhouse gases
by source and removals by sinks in Uganda. It also contains a number of
recommendations, including enhancement of legal, regulatory and policy
framework. The recommendations are however of a general nature, they do
not contain any specific details on the modalities of such a framework.
The institutions which participated in this project gained some capacity on
the methodologies for GHG emission estimation. The Inventory is however
supposed to be up-dated annually but this has not been the case due to lack
of funds and capacity in the collection and analysis of the required data.
There is therefore need to strengthen the capacity if the concern departments
and organizations in data collection and analysis such as the departments of
Meteorology and Energy, the Directorate of Water Resources, the National
Forestry Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and
Fisheries. The Private sector, especially the industries need also to have
enough capacity in measurement, monitoring and control of environmental
pollutants from the industries.
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· Adaptation and Mitigation Policies and Measures.
A Vulnerability, Adaptation and Mitigation Assessment study was carried
out with in 1995 with funding from the United States Government under the
United States Country Studies programme. It looked at the sectors of water
resources, crops, forestry as well as livestock and rangelands. Mitigation
Analysis was done for the Energy Sector.
Although climate change impacts upon Uganda are difficult to quantify due
to uncertainty about the rate of climate change and its magnitude, the
Uganda country study identified many specific impacts, which might be
anticipated in agriculture, livestock and rangelands, forestry and water
resources. The study also identified and recommended a range of adaptation
measures which could be implemented to counter the identified impacts. The
study however did not recommend ways of integrating the identified
Adaptation and Mitigation measures into the countries development
planning process.
Although some policies in Uganda address some aspects of climate change,
there are policies specifically designed to address climate change issues.
Uganda’s challenge now is to identify and evaluate potential adaptation
measures, and incorporate them into the country’s development policy and
management practices such as the PEAP, National Environment Action Plan
(NEAP), the Water Action Plan (WAP), the Forest Action Plan (FAP), the
Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), and the Decentralization Process.
The study enhanced the capacities of the participating institutions in
Vulnerability, Adaptation and Mitigation Analysis and also identified some
areas in which more capacity needs to be developed. Here below is a
summary of some of them:
a) Strengthen Uganda’s meteorological services so that they may provide
reliable medium to long-term advisories with respect to droughts and
floods.
b) Strengthen the Early Warning Information capacity, especially for
food security and short-term climate prediction.
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c) Carry out an inventory of existing practices and policies used to adapt
to different climate variability episodes in all line agencies and
sectors, so as to begin more detailed identification of adaptation
measures for evaluation and adoption.
d) Ensure that the Uganda Disaster Preparedness Committee (UDPC)
includes in its work plan long-term hazard reduction related to climate
change and climate variability.
e) Promote awareness of climate variability and change and potential
response alternatives throughout Ugandan society.
f) Carry out capacity building in water conservation at all levels of the
community using appropriate methods including the use of marketbased systems
g) Build capacity of and identify the roles that can be played by the nongovernmental groups, organizations and individuals comprising “civil
society as the suggested adaptation measures depend for their success
upon the active cooperation of individuals and organizations.
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· Technology Innovations and Transfer
Uganda is in plans of assessing its technology needs and technology transfer
barriers under the Enabling Activities project Phase II. The Project is funded
by GEF and implemented by UNDP. It is coordinated by the Department of
Meteorology. A consultant has been identified to carry out the work.