National Climate Change Policy

As the document outlines, 'the goal of the policy is to ensure a harmonised and co-ordinated approach towards a climate- resilient and low-carbon development path for sustainable development in Uganda'. The policy notes that the level of knowledge on climate change and its impacts remains low in Uganda. Therefore, it seeks to raise awareness of climate change, targeting sectorial weaknesses (to be determined by different governmental agencies and ministries) in the short term but providing information for a wide variety of stakeholders in the long term.
To this end, the Policy adopts a comprehensive approach to address climate change, identifying as priority concerns: adaptation, mitigation, monitoring, and research. To address these concerns, the Policy promotes the implementation of activities relating to: education and increased awareness; gender issues; promoting and diffusing research; monitoring and transferring knowledge; and institutional capacity building.
The policy calls for the adoption and implementation of a Transport Policy with emphasis on reducing GHG emissions from this sector, especially through the promotion of the use of less carbon intensive fuels. It also stresses the importance of the implementation of the 2007 Renewable Energy Policy and other measures that promote the use and the production of renewables.
The adoption of climate change strategies that address the impact of climate change and promote sustainable activities in the sectors of agriculture and livestock, fishery production, water management, forestry, wetland, biodiversity and ecosystem services and tourism are identified are important needs to develop Uganda's approach to adaption to climate change.
Moreover, the Policy also seeks to implement the basic institutional structure required to finance this awareness raising campaign and to develop a performance measurement framework for each ministry and agency involved. The policy also strengthens the Climate Change Unit, upgrading it to a National Climate Change Commission with a more advanced legal and institutional framework that can co-ordinate climate change policy across sectors and regions. The Policy Committee on Environment is also strengthened to help guide climate change policy implementation.
As annex to the Climate Change Policy, the Cost Implementation Strategy provides a more detailed account on the implementation of the Policy, including an indicative costing for the programmes and activities to be developed. Thus, according to the document, the total cost for the implementation of the Climate Change Policy is estimated in approximately 3.9 billion dollars over a 15-year period.