Mathias Lyasunda at COP27
Our Tanzanian friend Mathias Lyamunda is at COP 27, which is halfway through. Last year, I wrote about Mathias’ experience at COP 26 in Scotland, where he was our guest. He has good and bad to report from Egypt. One issue is the cost of food and accommodation. (We set up a Justgiving appeal and any donations however small would be appreciated.)
There was less visa hassle to get to Sharm el-Sheikh than Glasgow - though it was not easy as there were long delays. There were no host families for COP 27 and securing accommodation was difficult, with prices soaring and bookings canceled when someone offered more. “This has been a challenge for small organizations who do not have enough budget and they want their voices to be heard in the COP27 meeting. I think next time the United Nations should consider organizing the COP28 in Countries with facilities and that also handle the pressure of thousands of people coming in for the meeting,” Mathias said.
Food at the conference is extortionate. Tanzania produces top-quality coffee - but there won’t be any frothy coffees for most of the African delegates. Once, Mathias ordered a juice and a sandwich from the snack bar and it was $16. Now he and the other delegates he is sharing an apartment with go to the market in Sharm el-Sheikh and cook together, packing leftovers and water in reusable flasks for their long days in meetings. Clicking through to the catering page on the COP 27 site confirms his view of the prices - the buffet lunch is $45 per head.
COPs are important for African countries - they don’t get to attend other global conferences like G20. Mathias has addressed several meetings, explaining the Tanzanian perspective. He is working with Oil Watch, who part-funded his presence at COP27, and Oil Change, which advocates for just transition. At the COP he has also connected with Restore Africa, which organises tree-planting projects, and Afr100 Initiative which focuses on restoring the African continent through planting trees
Tree planting is important to Mathias - last year I wrote about his account of how his country has suffered from deforestation. Mathias attended primary school in a rural area. The area was then surrounded by forest, and plentiful crops grew in clearings. “There were areas that we were afraid to go because of the animals - cheetahs, lions.“ There was no shortage of food. But now, almost 30 years later, Matthias said: “The area around my old school is bare ground. Nobody plants crops because there is not enough rain.” The school, like most in Tanzania, does not provide food, so many of the children go hungry all day. In the last decades, Mathias explained, many trees have been cut down for people to sell charcoal for money to buy food, or to create clearings to farm crops. But now there is too little rain for crops to grow - partly because the loss of trees reduces precipitation.
Trees are being planted - but the rate of deforestation remains high, simply because of the massive dependence on charcoal, even in urban areas. Mathias, executive director of the Foundation for Environmental Management and Campaign against Poverty (FEMAPO), would like to get some funding for tree-planting around his old school.
Mathias wants to see more investment on renewables for the Southern African Countries. He does support the idea that Tanzania should consider exploiting some of its massive gas reserves, to save trees from being cut down for firewood. “However in my view instead of investing in gas is rather important to invest in cleaner energy which has zero emission and which can contribute to resolving the climate change crisis.”
Tanzania’s President Samia Hassan presented an $18 billion plan at COP27 to build renewable power generation in southern Africa. Tanzania is part of the Southern African Power Pool, or SAPP, a regional grid started in 1995 that has projects including new transmission lines across Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Congo. With about 60% of the power in the Southern Africa Power Pool generated by coal, Hassan is leading the nations to encourage investment to boost the generation of renewable energy and expand the transmission network by 2,500 kilometers.
Mathias is less supportive of another initiative by the Tanzanian government, the Uganda-Tanzania Oil Pipeline Sparks Climate Row. The Tanzanian government has signed a deal to construct a pipeline to transport crude oil from the shores of Lake Albert in western Uganda - which will be known as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).
Mathias said: “The EACOP pipeline is not a solution to the climate change crisis, the EACOP is adding up the already existing problem. The EACOP has an economic advantage for the participating countries Uganda and Tanzania, but it is not a solution to the Climate change crisis we have. The clock is ticking and the world leaders should be a solution to the crisis and not add up to the problems that we already have.”
The JustGiving link to support Mathias is here