Background
The sustainable development goal 13 of the United Nations intend to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. To attain this objective, transformation of value chains across the economy is the prerequisite (Rizos et al, 2018). Transformation encompasses new products and business models to look for means of converting what a normal linear economy considered as wastes into a new product circle. Energy-intensive industries normally emit Carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrocarbons as wastes that in turn pollute the environment, impair food security and pose health risks to the public. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) accounted for 73% and 19% of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted in 2019 (Olivier & Peters, 2020). The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by 31% since the commencement of second half of nineteenth century during the industrial era (UNCTAD, 2019).
This situation has resulted into increased global air temperatures, melting of ice and snow that in turn lead to increased risen sea levels (UNCTAD, 2019). The rise of air temperature is supported by evidence from the five warmest years ever occurred since 1880 as from 2015 that reached the maximum in 2019 with global land and ocean temperature of 0.950C above the average (Olivier & Peters, 2020). Public health concerns and substantial agricultural losses have also been documented. According to (Landrigan et al., 2018) deaths attributable to air pollution accounted for 16% leading to the tune of 9 million premature deaths in 2015 worldwide. Likewise, WHO (2016) revealed that in 2016, almost a quarter (23%) of all global deaths were attributable to air pollution, amounting to 8.2 million deaths annually; which is equivalent to 936 deaths per minute. The ambient air pollution was responsible for 4.2 million premature deaths in 2016; whose 7.11% (300,000) cases were children under the age of 5 years (WHO, 2018). The global welfare losses associated with air pollution stood at US$ 4.6 trillion which is equivalent to 6.2% of the world economic output, 1.7% losses of GDP in low & middle income countries and 2% losses of GDP in high income countries per annum (Landrigan et al., 2018). However, the burden of disease attributable to air pollution is heaviest in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) (Figure 1) (WHO, 2018; WHO, 2016). It is estimated that deaths associated with outdoor air pollution in Africa has increased from 164,000 cases in 1990 to 258,000 cases in 2017 (Rees et al., 2019) that is equivalent to a growth of 60% in a 17 years period.
In Tanzania, almost 19% of annual deaths is associated with impacts of air pollution related diseases that amounted to 74,170 cases in 2016 (URT, 2019b). ; At the same time, the proportion of Death and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) attributable to communicable and non-communicable diseases accounted for 62% and 30.8% respectively in 2016 (URT, 2019a). Moreover, the report estimated that diseases attributable to air pollution have costed the country up to US$ 540 and US$ 665 million in 2015 due to lost productivity and welfare damages (URT, 2019a).
Episodes of adverse weather conditions rank the second negative impact of air pollution. The climate change accounted for 65% of vagaries of weather conditions in more than half of last decade worldwide (Herring et al., 2018). Floods, storms and droughts accounted for 59%, 26% and 15% respectively of global crop losses and damages to agricultural infrastructure between 2003 and 2013 (FAO, 2018). In monetary terms, natural disasters were responsible for $96 billion worth of agricultural produce loss in developing countries between 2005 and 2015 (FAO, 2018). Meanwhile the increased temperature of 10C in developing countries is associated with a decline of 2.66% agricultural output; and decreased export growth by 2.0–5.6% (Jones & Olken, 2010).