This study was conducted in Tehuledere district, northeastern Ethiopia. The objective was to find out farmers' preferences for, and barriers to, adopting climate smart agricultural (CSA) practices. Both primary and secondary sources of data were collected using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Conjoint experiment method was employed to identify the most preferred attributes of CSA practices. We found that high and moderate climate resilience and high crop yield agricultural practices had a positive utility, implying that these were the most preferred combination of CSA when responding to climate change. Contrary to this, high greenhouse gas emissions, low climate resilience and low crop yield had a negative utility, implying that these were the least preferred combination of CSA when responding to climate change. The study found that crop yield and resilience are the most important factors influencing farmers' preferences for CSA practices. The main barriers limiting wide adoption and practicing of CSA include inadequate law enforcement, lack of incentives, inadequate and unreliable extension and weather information. The study established that CSA practices were viable and effective response measures, hence increased support through adoption of innovative technologies, policies and strategies to address the barriers and widen the adoption scope of CSA is recommended.

Climate change and variability are pervasive contemporary realities in Africa. In this paper, we investigate climate stressors (i.e. rainfall patterns and drought) that have occurred in the Great Ruaha River sub-Basin (GRRB), Tanzania. By making use of a mixed-methods approach, including both quantitative and qualitative data collection, we demonstrate that changes in rainfall pattern experienced by rural farmers in the GRRB have increased since the 1990s, as have limiting factors constraining sustainable response options. By interrogating data from focus group discussions with smallholder farmers, household questionnaire surveys, and records from government institutions, we show that sustainable livelihoods in this area are also being compromised by non-climatic stresses such as a lack of coordinated crop markets and poor access to loans, inadequate weather forecast information, and poor irrigation infrastructure and varying climate. As a consequence of climatic stresses, resources utilization, diversification of farming methods, and broader structural and development concerns, smallholder farmers have responded with corresponding changes in coping and adaptation strategies. Smallholder farmers are more frequently resorting to shorter term coping strategies rather than longer term adaptation, and are thus still heavily reliant on social, economic, and policy support to improve both their shorter term coping and longer term adaptive capacity.

Most mitigation scenarios compatible with a likely change of holding global warming well below 2 °C rely on negative emissions technologies (NETs). According to the integrated assessment models (IAMs) used to produce mitigation scenarios for the IPCC reports, the NET with the greatest potential to achieve negative emissions is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Crucial questions arise about where the enormous quantities of biomass needed according to the IAM scenarios could feasibly be produced in a sustainable manner. Africa is attractive in the context of BECCS because of large areas that could contribute biomass energy and indications of substantial underground CO 2 storage capacities. However, estimates of large biomass availability in Africa are usually based on highly aggregated datasets, and only a few studies explore future challenges or barriers for BECCS in any detail. Based on previous research and literature, this paper analyses the preconditions for BECCS in Tanzania by studying what we argue are the applications of BECCS, or the components of the BECCS chain, that are most feasible in the country, namely (1) as applied to domestic sugarcane-based energy production (bioethanol), and (2) with Tanzania in a producer and re-growth role in an international BECCS chain, supplying biomass or biofuels for export to developed countries. The review reveals that a prerequisite for both options is either the existence of a functional market for emissions trading and selling, making negative emissions a viable commercial investment, or sustained investment through aid programmes. Also, historically, an important barrier to the development of production capacity of liquid biofuels for export purposes has been given by ethical dilemmas following in the wake of demand for land to facilitate production of biomass, such as sugarcane and jatropha. In these cases, conflicts over access to land and mismanagement have been more of a rule than an exception. Increased production volumes of solid biomass for export to operations that demand bioenergy, be it with or without a CCS component, is likely to give rise to similar conflicts. While BECCS may well play an important role in reducing emissions in countries with high capacity to act combined with existing large point sources of biogenic CO 2 emissions, it seems prudent to proceed with utmost caution when implicating BECCS deployment in least developed countries, like Tanzania.The paper argues that negative BECCS-related emissions from Tanzania should not be assumed in global climate mitigation scenarios.

Biochar was recently included as a promising negative emissions technology (NET) in the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Unlike other NETs, it can potentially be used to mitigate global climate change while adding to local resilience in countries highly exposed and sensitive to impacts of climate change, such as least-developed countries (LDCs). The study is as an empirical contribution to the, as of yet, underdeveloped literature on deployment of negative emissions technologies in LDCs in general and on biochar use in developing countries and LDCs specifically. Nine historical and existing biochar projects in Tanzania are mapped in order to analyse problems, goals and common trade-offs associated with smallto medium-scale biochar production in LDCs. The mapping is based on a literature and document study, interviews with project actors, and on-site visits to biochar projects during 2019. The paper gives support to the observation made in the biochar literature that while biochar has many potential socioeconomic and environmental benefits, combining them in one single project is difficult. It is concluded that implementing biochar projects in Tanzania will likely involve trade-offs between the development and subsistence strategies and needs of local communities, the motivational forces of different project participants, and the uneven regulatory capacity of the state. We end by reflecting on the use of biochar projects to offset carbon emissions made elsewhere.