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Tanzania has rejected an international project to capture and store carbon from the air in a bid to mitigate the effects of climate change and global warming.

Under the project, fossil fuel emissions are captured in the form of carbon from large point sources like and power stations and permanently stored away from the atmosphere.

Speaking at a stakeholders meeting at in Dar es Salaam yesterday, deputy director of Environment in the Vice-President’s Office, Mr Richard Muyungi, said Tanzania refused to take the project because consequences of storing carbon are unknown.

Mr Muyungi said technology used to store carbon may have negative effects to human beings in the long term.

He said the storage of carbon is either done in geological formations, deep ocean masses or in the form of mineral carbonates.

“Who knows that stored carbon could possibly destroy minerals in the ground due to acids it contains and the technology used?” queries Mr Muyungi.

He said Tanzania has adopted Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in place of other carbon control systems, an arrangement endorsed under the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations.

The protocol allows industrialised countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment, to invest in projects that reduce carbon emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries.

Mr Muyungi said Tanzania is aware of the challenges of climate change, but financial difficulties are hampering efforts to mitigate the effects of global warming.

African countries including Tanzania contribute only three per cent of all carbon emissions globally.Countries which contribute most of carbon have been given until 2012 to reduce carbon emissions.

World Bank environmental specialist Karan Capoor, told the meeting that poor countries, specifically from Africa, are vulnerable to the world climate risks.

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Tags: Carbon Capture, Carbon Emission, Carbon Storage