Mitigation and Adaptation for Climate Change in Ethiopia

     Ethiopia in the large picture of climate change does very little to contribute to the problem.  Yet due to location in the world and overall geography of the area there is high confidence to believe that climate change will effect them.  For that reason there are some suggestions and guidelines that have been recommended by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  The suggestions offered by the UNFCCC are sensitive to Ethiopia and take into consideration the unique geography, climate, social, and economic aspects this country possesses.

     One suggestion is for the promotion of renewable energy.  Ethiopia could develop a large source of energy production through the use of hydro, solar, wind, and geothermal, as this country's geography allows a huge abundance of each of these types of renewable sources.  A second suggestion is to further protect and preserve forests plus reforest those areas that were subject to mass deforestation in Ethiopia's past.

    Adaptation will also be necessary for Ethiopia and Africa as a whole.  One idea that would be useful throughout Africa is the use and creation of technological advance is food production.  As it states in the IPCC report on climate change adaptation measures, "In Africa, biotechnology research could also yield tremendous benefits if it leads to drought and pest resistant rice, drought tolerant maize and insect resistant millet, sorghum, and cassava." (ipcc.ch)

     Ethiopia joined the Kyoto protocol in April of 2005.  However, like many of the world's economically deficient countries their affects on climate change positively or negatively will be negligible.
   Overall there has been some action in mitigation efforts in Ethiopia.  Since late 2012 over 13,000 off-grid solar panels have been installed  to provide enough energy for lighting, cell-phone charging, solar fridge, and computers for individual homes. ( http://cleantechnica.com 2009) There is also a plan to dam off the Blue Nile River for the purpose of hydro electric power. However, there is concern from the countries of Sudan and Egypt over how that would affect the flow of the Nile River. (http://www.businessweek.com 2013)

Installation of Solar Panels in Ethiopia http://cleantechnica.com

    Overall Ethiopia, like most of the African continent, has been given a raw deal, on behalf of the developed world.  They have contributed very little to the problem, yet along with many African countries, will be one of the countries that will have a harder time adapting.  At this moment I see very little reason to mitigate for climate change in Ethiopia, other than to create energy independence while keeping their very low carbon foot print.  In my opinion the main focus of the money that is spent in Ethiopia toward climate change should be used for adaptation and not mitigation.  There is a poor infrastructure in place and there will be a need to establish a system to deal with the volatility that this global issue may cause in Ethiopia

Climate Change Impacts in Ethiopia

     According to the 2007 IPCC report there is a likely chance that the Eastern portion of the African continent will not only be experiencing increased heat, but also an increase of rainfall.  Which for Ethiopia could be seen as a blessing and a curse.  They do have times of drought, so increase in rainfall could help this area with their agricultural industry.  However, Ethiopia also has problems with flooding due to soil erosion caused by deforestation.  They have been very active in replanting their forests so maybe flooding would not be as big of an issue for the area.  Plus Ethiopia has many different types of geographic landscapes that would react differently with increased rainfall.

Temperature increase for Eastern Africa from 2007 IPCC report

     The IPCC report does state in the following paragraph that there are many systematic problems with the MMD modeling.  This in itself could create many different climate change scenarios that cannot be accurately predicted.

     As a whole the African continent will have many issues adapting to climate change.  It is predicted that 75 million to 250 million people will be affected by water stress related issues by the year 2020.  Due to the lack of adaptability this continent because of economic stress the water scarcity they could face will be a major hurdle.

    The Executive Summary of the IPCC has many possible scenarios that are being described as having a high to very high confidence level of occurring.  Again it is thought that due to the economic issues the continent has adaptability to climate change will be hindered.   Agricultural production and security will be a challenge for many African countries.  Water stress will become worse for those countries already facing water scarcity issues and those countries currently not having water stress issues will begin to have water scarcity issues.  That is considered to have a "very high confidence" of occurring.  Coastal cities could be affected by sea-rise.  There is also the concern of climate caused diseases, such as malaria.
     In the article by Gene J.-Y You and Claudia Ringler "Climate Change Impacts in Ethiopia: Hydro-Economic Modeling Projections," from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) website, the thought is that without proper irrigation policy and procedure in Ethiopia, the increased water gains may not translate to a much higher GDP in the agriculture industry.  This is due to the lack of infrastructure and the high risk of flooding in the country.  The flooding may be caused by, according to this report, the increase of rainfall that would have inconsistent variability.  Without proper water storage and irrigation that increase would be lost.
     It appears that many of Ethiopia's challenges due to climate change will be in relation to economic and infrastructure deficiencies.  If Ethiopia could work toward improving their agricultural and water systems, possibly climate change will not be, in the short term, as harsh as other areas of the world.

From cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_coun.html the carbon dioxide emissions graph Ethiopia there is data to show that there is very little Co2 emissions until the mid to late 1960's.  Through some research I thought that possibly this was due to the deforestation that occurred throughout that time.  However, throughout the history of Ethiopia the majority of Co2 emissions was caused by liquid (fuel).  During the 60's there was also political unrest in Ethiopia, however, I am not sure how that would affect Co2 levels.

Ethiopia is an undeveloped country and their Co2 use per capita follows that status.  Ethiopia uses only .02 metric tons per person.  Compared to the US that uses 4.9 metric tons of carbon per person.  That is only .098% of the US usage.  On the overall ranking of countries production of Co2, Ethiopia is 208th compare to the US at 12th.  Knowing that the majority of the US's carbon production is from buildings (Residential, commercial, and industrial), it makes sense that Ethiopia, whose major contributing factor of GDP is agricultural, would be that much lower than the US and other developed countries.

As can be seen on the Carbon Emissions graph that has comparisons to five other countries (three of those are developed and two are not), Ethiopia's carbon emissions does not even register.  As a country Ethiopia does not even get above 2000 metric tons of carbon emissions in a year.  Compare that with the US at 1.5 million metric tons and China at 2.25 million metric tons.  China is obviously the largest emitter of Carbon as of 2010.  But overall the US per capita is a much larger Co2 emitter than China. At 4.71 metric tons per US citizen compared with 1.68 per Chinese citizen, it is pretty obvious that the US has much larger consumption levels than China.

It is even more obvious who the largest contributor to Co2 emissions is when comparing total overall Co2 emissions.  The US is at 94,225,770 Thousand Metric tons of Co2 since the year 1900,  China is at 36,152,061 since 1900, India is at 10,229,326, Italy is 5,576,526, and Ethiopia is at 38,686 since 1941 (farthest back their records go).  It is obvious who is to blame for the most Co2 emissions thus far.  China has only produced 38.3% of what the US has produced, and India has produced only 10.85%.

Co2 Concentration

Total Fossil Fuel Emissions per countries