Rwanda is heavily dependent upon its natural resources including land, water, and forests. Over two-thirds of the population engage in agriculture, forestry, and tourism for income and food security. However, the impacts of climate change have increasingly undermined the economic gains in recent years. In response to the growing climate change challenges to the economy, Rwanda has put in place a legal, policy and strategic framework to deal with climate change and climate variability induced risks and economic losses through (among other approaches) reducing vulnerability and building resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Rwanda’s adaptation and resilience priorities draw upon the Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy adopted in 2011 with a time horizon of 2050. The key adaptation actions are:

• Sustainable intensification of agriculture
• Agriculture diversity in local and export markets
• Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and planning
• Integrated Land Use and Management
• Efficient resilient transport systems
• Ecotourism, Conservation and Payment of Ecosystem Services
• Sustainable Forest and Agroforestry
• Disaster and Diseases prevention
• Climate data and projections

Over the years, it has been proven that climate change is a global challenge requiring an integrated global response along with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Rwanda is committed to taking urgent action to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. As part of UNFCCC, Rwanda has joined the Paris agreement with a goal of limiting temperature rise to 2oC with an effort to reach 1.5oC
compared to pre-industrial levels.

In May 2020, Rwanda has submitted its revised NDC, in which the country has committed a Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target of 38 % from the Business As Usual (BAU) levels projected from 2015. The NDC indicated that GHG emissions will more than doubling under the BAU projection from 5.3 MtCO2 e in the base year (2015) to around 12.1 MtCO2 e in 2030. With the domestically supported unconditional mitigation measures, 2030 emissions are
forecast to instead rise to around 10.2 MtCO2 e, representing a reduction against BAU of around 16%. With both domestic and conditional mitigation measures, emissions are forecast to instead total around 7.5 MtCO2 e, equal to a reduction of 38% by 2030 against the same baseline.