Prime
Oil: Government unveils plan to address pollution
What you need to know:
- Also, urban centres will have to shift to buses which carry many passengers and reduce pollution from many cars and boda bodas by the indicated year.
- Ms Susan Nandudu, the programme assistant, Climate Change Development Network , said improved cook stoves, briquettes’ use should be adopted to fight deforestation.
Kampala. The government has outlined key areas of the economy that it intends to jointly invest in with the private sector to minimise pollution, and also meet the Paris Climate Change agreement signed in 2015.
The commissioner in charge of climate change at the Ministry of Water and Environment, Mr Chebet Maikut, listed transport, agriculture, forestry, energy, wetland and waste management as areas that will define Uganda’s pollution and emission of gases reduction attainment.
“When we invest in these sectors, we will be able to reduce our emissions by 22 per cent by 2025,” Mr Maikut said at the sidelines of Post COP23 feedback meeting in Kampala yesterday.
By 2025, Uganda is expected to have started oil and gas production which he said will slightly increase Uganda’s gas emissions into the atmosphere but oil products such as liquefied gas will help tame deforestation.
Mr Maikut said Uganda contributes about 0.07 of global emission, a figure that will jump to 0.9 per cent when oil and gas production starts.
He said planting trees, converting waste into energy and tapping into renewable energy such as solar, geothermal and hydro are other clean energy sources that will be used to reduce pollution.
The 22 per cent emission reduction is what Uganda committed to under the Paris Agreement, where more than 150 signatories committed to reducing global emissions and keep annual global temperature rise below two degrees centigrade, temperature regarded by scientists safe for both human beings and activities such as agriculture.
However, Uganda’s action is dependent on financing from developed countries and their commitement to emission reduction because they are the biggest emitters.
Mr Ronald Kaggwa, the head production and trade planning at the National Planning Authority, said by 2030, Uganda should have 4,500 megawatts of hydropower, solar energy will be at 5,000mega watts and geothermal at 500megawats.
“And there should also have started nuclear energy production for energy purposes,”
Also, urban centres will have to shift to buses which carry many passengers and reduce pollution from many cars and boda bodas by the indicated year.
Ms Susan Nandudu, the programme assistant, Climate Change Development Network , said improved cook stoves, briquettes’ use should be adopted to fight deforestation.
