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What Tunisia’s Municipalities Can Contribute to Climate Adaptation

Because Tunisia’s regions face different climate threats and socioeconomic needs, municipalities should be more empowered to implement climate mitigation measures and protect vulnerable communities.

by Sarah Yerkes and Joy Arkeh

Published on June 13, 2024

Tunisia is facing a rapidly escalating climate crisis. Last summer, the government was forced to implement water rationing to address a severe drought. And the country’s most vulnerable residents—many of whom rely on agriculture and fishing for their income—are being hit the hardest by worsening water and food scarcity and rising temperatures. Despite Tunisia being a globally recognized climate hot spot, President Kais Saied’s government has failed to prioritize climate adaptation and mitigation, instead focusing on a political program that centralizes power into the leadership’s hands and removes local agency. This political shift has had real and serious implications for the ability of local communities to address climate change. This piece will discuss the main climate challenges facing Tunisia today, the ways in which these challenges contribute to the country’s socioeconomic inequality, and the measures the Tunisian government (as well as other actors, such as civil society organizations and the international community) are taking to address climate change.

Major Climate Challenges Facing Tunisia

Tunisia is facing myriad challenges that have been either brought on or exacerbated by climate change. According to the World Bank, a combination of political, geographic, and social factors have made Tunisia “one of the Mediterranean countries most exposed to climate change.” Furthermore, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature, temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea are rising 20 percent faster than the global average.

The challenges facing Tunisia vary by region. The country has three different climate zones: a Mediterranean zone in the north, a steppe zone in the center of the country, and a desert zone in the south. Each zone faces its own unique climate-related challenges. In the north, sea level rise is already leading to erosion, flooding, and contamination of the coastal aquifers. Both the central and southern zones face water scarcity caused by rising temperatures and drought.

But one thing that unites the three zones is the overall dissatisfaction with the Tunisian government’s efforts at addressing climate change. In 2022, Tunisians were, globally, the population most dissatisfied with efforts to preserve the environment (tied with Lebanon), according to a Gallup poll. And only 19 percent of Tunisians said they are satisfied with the quality of water in their city or area—the lowest number Gallup has recorded at the country level since 2005. In the south of the country, only 7 percent of residents were satisfied with water quality—a dramatic drop from a 48 percent satisfaction level in the south in 2015.

Water Scarcity

Tunisia has already reached the threshold of water scarcity, and rising temperatures combined with decreasing rainfall will only exacerbate the situation in the coming years. The World Resources Institute’s aqueduct water risk measuring and mapping project ranks Tunisia as the twentieth-highest country in the world in terms of water stress. Owing to a continuing decline in rainfall, the country experienced a three-year drought from 2017 to 2020. Between September 2022 and March 2023, Tunisia saw only around 110 million cubic meters of rainfall, compared to an annual average of 520 million cubic meters prior to the drought. In 2023, Tunisia’s share of water per capita has fallen to 400 cubic meters per year, far below the 1,000 cubic meters per year that the United Nations considers water poverty.

Tunisia is predicted to lose 75 percent of its total coastal water resources by 2050 because of a combination of increasing demand for water, overexploitation of groundwater, declining water stocks, and degradation of water quality in coastal aquifers. The United Nations predicts that while demand for drinking water in Tunisia could increase by 38 percent by 2100, Tunisia’s renewable water resources will decrease between 31 and 61 percent by 2100 due to climate change.

In 2023, Tunisia faced historic water shortages, leading to government-enforced water rationing in some regions of the country for the first time in its history. The water rationing has impacted the capital as well as several other areas, including Hammamet, Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia, and Sfax. In the north of the country, residents rely on dams and artificial lakes to meet 80 percent of their water needs, and dams continuously have fallen below adequate levels. The regions with the highest “thirst” levels, according to the Tunisian Water Observatory, are the northeastern areas of Nabeul and Ben Arous. During June 2023, Nabeul and Ben Arous residents reported nearly a quarter of all of the country’s water-related problems, such as poor water quality, leaks, cutoffs, and water-related protests.

On March 31, 2023, the National Company for the Exploitation and Distribution of Water (called Sonede) began instituting water quotas due to extremely low water levels in Tunisia’s thirty dams. At the time, the Sidi Salem Dam, a 1980s construction project that provided what was once the country’s largest freshwater reserve, had fallen to just 16 percent of its capacity—an historic low.

The water scarcity problems have a particularly major impact on agriculture, which made up 10 percent of Tunisia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 and employed 14 percent of the workforce. Seventy-seven percent of Tunisia’s water is used for irrigation. Many farmers can no longer meet their water needs for irrigation and are experiencing crop loss. In a January 2023 poll, 73 percent of Tunisians said they were either somewhat concerned or very concerned about their household’s access to food over the next six months. Alongside looming government mismanagement, the country is also expected to experience an increase in droughts that could decrease cereal production by 40 percent and olive production by 32 percent by 2050. In May 2023, the Tunisian government said that the wheat harvest was expected to reach only 250,000 tons of grain this year, compared to an average of 1.5 million tons annually. This shortfall has forced the cash-strapped country to import 95 percent of its grain, which has led to bread rationing and forced many bakeries to shut their doors.

Other industries that are experiencing job loss due to water scarcity include low-income jobs like house and office cleaners and car washers. Furthermore, while wealthier families can afford to purchase bottled water, lower-income Tunisians also suffer from having to rely on unclean sources of drinking water.

Tunisia’s water scarcity is attributable not only to climate change but also to poor governance and poor maintenance of Tunisia’s water infrastructure. Hydrogeologist Radhia Essamin, a member of the Tunisian Water Observatory, told Le Monde, “There has been a lack of strategic vision for years. There are leaks that no one cares about, and as soon as there is a drought, citizens are the first to be affected by cuts.”

Temperature Rise

A second major climate challenge facing Tunisia is temperature rise. The United Nations Development Programme’s Human Climate Horizons project estimates that Tunisia will see an average annual temperature of 69.3°F in 2040–2059, above the global average of 61°F. This includes an annual average of seventy-one days above 95°F and an average of one hundred days above 95°F in 2080–2099, a dramatic increase from just thirty-one days above 95°F in 1986–2005. Overall, this temperature rise could lead to a tenfold increase in Tunisia’s climate-related death toll. These numbers will vary by region, however: Nabeul, a northern coastal region, is predicted to increase from zero climate-related deaths between 2020–2039 to twenty-seven climate-related deaths in 2080–2099 while Tozeur, an interior southern region, is predicted to increase from twenty-two climate-related deaths between 2020–2039 to 118 climate-related deaths in 2080–2099.

The Tunisian National Institute of Meteorology predicts a temperature rise of up to 1.8°C by 2050 and up to 3°C for 2100. This disproportionately affects the interior regions, which are predicted to see temperature rises up to 2.3°C and 5.2°C by 2050 and 2100, respectively. These regions, which are home to much of Tunisia’s agricultural economy, will face serious threats from heat waves that have the potential to decimate crop production. Rising temperatures can also lead to the evaporation of surface water, further exacerbating water scarcity.

Rising Sea Levels

A third climate threat is rising sea levels. Tunisia has experienced rising sea levels that have led to coastal erosion and contamination of the coastal aquifers on which farmers rely for irrigation. A majority of the Tunisian coastline (68 percent) is classified as moderately to very highly vulnerable. In Cap Bon, an aquifer experienced such high levels of seawater contamination that local farmers were forced to abandon their farming plots and wells.

Sea levels are expected to rise 30 to 50 centimeters along the Tunisian coastline, which could exacerbate existing saltwater intrusion into groundwater and cause loss of arable land and soil degradation. The tourism industry is also threatened by rising sea levels, as much of the tourism sector is located along the coastline. Over a quarter of the Tunisian coastline is considered very highly vulnerable to submersion and erosion, particularly the beaches of Hammamet and Tunis; 40 percent of Hammamet’s beaches and 30 percent of Tunis beaches are classified as very highly vulnerable.

How Climate Change Contributes to Inequality

Across the globe, climate change contributes to inequality and disproportionately impacts poorer communities. Wealthier countries tend to consume more energy and contribute to climate change at higher rates, while poorer countries pay the price for these wealthier countries’ higher fossil fuel consumption. Furthermore, wealthier people have a higher adaptive capacity to climate change. For example, as temperatures rise, higher-income individuals are more likely to be able to access air conditioning, while lower-income individuals are more vulnerable to heat-induced cardiovascular and respiratory ailments and death.

Climate change has the potential to send poorer populations into a vicious cycle of persistent poverty exacerbated by climate, such as the negative impacts on agriculture from rising temperatures, heat waves, decreasing rainfall, and desertification. All of these effects can trap agricultural workers in poverty as climate change continues to increase food, housing, and healthcare costs. As Lucas Chanel and his colleagues argue, “vulnerability to numerous climate impacts is strongly linked to income and wealth, not just between countries but also within them.” They note that “poverty and vulnerability to climate hazards are correlated and mutually enforce each other.” In the Middle East and North Africa region, the top 10 percent of earners are responsible for more than 15 times the carbon footprint of the bottom 50 percent of earners.

In Tunisia, climate change is already impacting the traditionally marginalized interior and southern regions, where residents are more likely to work in jobs associated with climate stress (such as agriculture) than in the coastal regions. A third of the population of Kasserine receives their income from agriculture, compared to a national average of just 16.5 percent. And unemployment rates, particularly among women, are significantly higher in the interior. This trend has led to rural-to-urban migration, which is likely to increase with climate change according to the World Bank. Currently, 69 percent of the Tunisian population resides in urban areas, and that number is expected to reach 80 percent by 2050.

Tunisia’s north, where much of the country’s cereal production takes place, also faces threats from rising sea levels and temperature increases, further aggravating economically disadvantaged groups and contributing to food insecurity. Food import dependency has especially exposed Tunisia’s population to shocks in the food market and agricultural sector. As conveyed by Layla Riahi—a researcher, activist, and member of the Tunisian Platform for Alternatives—“In Tunisia we have economic policies that exacerbate environmental problems.” She points to an economy that relies on extraction and is a “primary source of pollution.”

Climate migration could also further harm Tunisia’s most vulnerable residents. Sub-Saharan African migrants who move to Tunisia are likely to put additional stress on the country’s poor infrastructure and add to an already overstretched employment market. Tunisia could also see internal rural-to-urban migration, leading to increased levels of urban poverty that is gendered, as more men migrate for employment and leave behind women and children in climate-vulnerable conditions. Existing migrants and refugees are also vulnerable as they often live without social safety nets. Additionally, lower-income housing has become increasingly threatened by the growing number of extreme weather events. Less-wealthy communities tend to spend a much larger fraction of their income than their wealthier neighbors on food and other basic necessities, making them more vulnerable to food and energy price shocks brought on by climate change and natural disasters.

Tunisia is also predicted to experience a dramatic drop in labor productivity because of climate change (measured as annual hours worked per worker). High-risk sectors (such as agriculture, mining, construction, and manufacturing) likely will see a national average of −29.4 hours by 2080–2099. These sectors tend to be concentrated in the traditionally marginalized regions in the interior of the country. Low-risk sectors (all other industries) will see a change of only −7.2 hours.

Additionally, Tunisia is experiencing unequal effects of climate change across genders. Women, especially poor and rural women, tend to face a variety of challenges such as “access to resources, opportunity for improving existing livelihoods and developing alternative livelihoods, and participating in decision making.” Women are therefore less able to adapt to climate change, which can cause “exacerbated welfare impacts on individuals, households and communities.”

Scholars have also documented links between climate change, epidemics, and socioeconomic inequality. Climate change is likely to increase more severe epidemics. Archibong and Annan note that “climate change and associated global warming may cause epidemics through changes in climate variables like temperature, precipitation and wind speeds, and indirect effects, where adaptive behavior to these direct effects by human populations through strategies like migration may more easily facilitate the spread of disease.” They also show that “epidemics can worsen outcomes for groups in already relatively economically precarious circumstances, like women around the world, thereby widening group-based, socioeconomic inequality.”

Tunisia’s Efforts to Address Climate Change: Climate Adaptation Through Economic Resilience

The Tunisian government, on paper, is quite advanced when it comes to addressing climate change. Tunisia was the third country in the world to introduce climate protections as a right in their constitution—a measure that was carried over from the 2014 to the 2022 constitution, which explicitly states that “the state guarantees the right to a healthy and balanced environment and the right to participate in the protection of the climate.” The government of former president and dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ratified several international conventions related to the environment, and Tunisia was the first North African state to ratify the 1993 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 2002 Kyoto Protocol, and the 2017 Paris Agreement. Following the 2011 revolution, the Tunisian Ministry of Local Affairs and the Environment developed a National Climate Change Strategy (known by its French acronym SNCC) in 2012 that includes both adaptation and mitigation measures.

Tunisia has since adopted a macroeconomic-focused climate adaptation framework that acknowledges the need for economically and socially inclusive climate policy solutions. Most recently, the Tunisian government issued a National Strategy for Ecological Transition that “seeks to implement a resilient, sustainable, socially fair, and inclusive development model that changes existing ways of consuming, producing, working, and living while promoting conservation, carbon neutrality and circularity.”

Notably, Tunisia is targeting a 45 percent decrease in carbon intensity from 2010 to 2030. Decarbonizing energy supplies would yield lower energy costs for companies and households and has the potential to slash poverty by 12 percent. Tunisia’s decarbonization policies also call for creating climate-resilient, green urban development plans that are specific to each Tunisian municipality, a demonstration of a climate adaptation method proportional to climate risk exposure levels.

As recognized in Tunisia’s Nationally Determined Contribution and National Adaptation Plan, the consequences of inaction are particularly pronounced in the agri-food sector in terms of livelihood and production losses. As a result, Tunisia has prioritized efforts to establish food resilience for farmers, smallholders, and women. Plans to digitize food production systems and strengthen information sharing mechanisms between agricultural stakeholders, in addition to collaborating with economic actors on developing financial risk assessment methods, are underway.

By marrying economic and sustainability initiatives, Tunisia is embracing cross-sectoral and interministerial coordination as a climate response strategy, as evident in its national strategy for the development of green hydrogen. The strategy, beginning in 2022, is being developed by the Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Energy in cooperation with the German development organization GIZ with the aim of producing green hydrogen by 2025. Tunisian government partners include the Ministry of Energy, the Tunisian Company for Electricity and Gas (STEG), National Agency for Energy Management, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of State Domains and Land Affairs, Ministry of Environment, the Instance for Public Private Partnerships of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and the Groupe Chimique Gabes.

Through support from the international community, greater private sector and multistakeholder involvement is also at the forefront of Tunisia’s climate strategy. Diversifying investment streams can be highly beneficial in helping Tunisia meet its climate financing needs. In July, the Tunisian Private Sector Energy Transition Support Program (known as Power Tunisia) launched to promote the adoption of renewable energy in the country. This five-year program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, is meant to support private sector companies in transitioning to green energy through technical assistance and subsidies. It specifically seeks to “increase renewable energy deployment, reduce CO₂ emissions, reduce electricity consumption, mobilize external capital in clean energy investments, and engage and support Tunisian firms.” As the initiative’s website notes, nearly all (98.1 percent) of Tunisia’s electricity is derived from natural gas, two-thirds of which is imported from Algeria, which leaves the country “especially vulnerable to the volatility of international oil and gas price shocks.” Power Tunisia has three tiers of support: large projects of $2 million or more, medium projects of $20,000 to $2,000,000, and small projects of less than $20,000. Targets of support range from small businesses and private residences to industrial Tunisian and international firms.

As a result of these initiatives, Tunisia has improved dramatically in the Ibrahim Index of African Governance on environmental policies, defined as “the extent to which environmental concerns are effectively taken into account in both macro and microeconomic terms.” The country went from 42.9 out of 100 in 2012 to 71.4 out of 100 in 2021. However, in the same index, in terms of the enforcement of environmental regulations it decreased from 62.1 in 2012 to 51.4—a signal of the disconnect between commitments on paper and action in practice and therefore the need to reconcile policy, projects, and plans with structured, tenable implementation mechanisms.

How Structural Gaps in Governance Shape Inequality and Vulnerability

Scholars point to several challenges the Tunisian government and people face in dealing with climate change, including fragmented government coalitions, a prevailing rent-economy, financial constraints, a feeble institutional foundation for climate action, limited decentralization, the lack of a functional local government structure, and limited involvement of relevant stakeholders.

Municipalities and Civil Society Organizations

As Adel Ben Youssef argues, “cities are at the forefront of the fight against climate change.” The Local Collectivities Code (Law 29 of May 9, 2018) outlines the roles of Tunisia’s municipal governments in addressing environmental challenges and sustainable development. However, that law was not carried over under Saied’s Third Republic; the comprehensive decentralization plan put forward by the Caid Essebsi government was essentially erased under Saied. This is highly problematic. As Ben Youssef notes,

“municipalities in Tunisia have different bioclimates, which need specific action varying from one municipality to another. Therefore, municipalities in Tunisia experience extreme climatic events differently: loss of coastline in Djerba and Bizerte; food insecurity in Nabeul, a governorate with one of the highest poverty rates; forest fires in Boukarnine or Aïn Draham, municipalities with poor infrastructure and few social and economic opportunities; and marine intrusion in Radès.”

A centralized climate strategy devoid of a municipal-level approach does not adequately address local climate challenges and needs and is unlikely to be successful or improve preexisting socioeconomic disparities.

A 2022 study on the role of municipalities in addressing climate change in Tunisia found that only 12 percent of municipalities had implemented climate adaptation measures and only 9 percent had implemented mitigation measures. This relative inactivity is attributable to a combination of a lack of prioritization by municipalities, the centralized nature of the Tunisian state, and the serious financial constraints faced by municipalities. Local officials must rely on international and private sector funding to develop climate adaptation and mitigation programs. Institutional incapacities brought about by a lack of local data, low climate awareness, and poor technical knowledge at the municipal governance level present additional obstacles. To promote climate governance that equitably addresses the challenges of poorer and less-functional municipalities, Tunisia will have to streamline national level strategies—such as the SNCC, low-carbon strategy (SNBC 2050) and the Energy Efficiency Strategy—into municipal-level frameworks.

Similarly, if mobilized and enforced institutionally at a multinational level, Tunisian civil society organizations’ efforts to step in and fill in the gap left by ineffective government attention on climate change will no longer go unnoticed. For instance, one Tunisian civil society organization, the Tunisian Water Observatory, has undertaken a mapping project that allows citizens to report water shutoffs, poor water quality, and water-related protests. In 2022, the organization collected 2,300 alerts, the vast majority of which were related to water shutoffs. The governorates reporting the highest number of alerts were Ben Arous, Gabes, and Sfax. However, while this example suggests how civil society organizations often possess knowledge about climate change and expertise in developing adaptation and mitigation measures equal to (if not more than) local officials, civil society actors have described roadblocks put in place by the central government that prevent them from carrying out their projects. For example, Tunisia’s green hydrogen national strategy has, thus far, failed to include civil society organizations, scientists, and affected communities within the strategic discussions.

Civil society organizations’ exclusion from climate policy negotiations and policy action fundamentally can be traced to budget and funding limitations, which delegitimizes organizations looking to participate in project implementation in a meaningful and official capacity. Consequently, less civil society involvement can mean the further disadvantaging of vulnerable groups exposed to climate risks, in ways that could have been avoided through risk-informed training and workshops on climate mitigation and adaptation, such as technology use in the agricultural sector at the local and municipal level or data analysis at the ministerial level. A study on Tunisia by the Economic Research Forum demonstrated that the exclusion of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from law drafting decreased NGO climate training involvement by as much as 40 percent.

Despite these obstacles, civil society has been effective in raising awareness of climate issues and putting pressure on officials. But, even when civil society actors are able to convince local officials to act, the centralized nature of the Tunisian state often prevents these local officials from carrying out their plans, owing to a lack of prioritization and structure at the federal level.

The danger that centralization will perpetuate climate-induced structural inequalities in Tunisia can be more clearly understood when analytically applied to the climate-sensitive sectors of energy and water.

Implications of Centralized Governance in Energy and Water Sectors

The highly centralized nature of the government writ large, and the energy sector in particular, is a serious impediment to the necessary reforms to reduce Tunisia’s reliance on fossil fuels in a manner that also protects vulnerable segments of the population. Although Tunisia’s energy subsidy reforms have scaled back the extent of fossil fuel dependency, subsidies have eaten up 5.3 percent of GDP in 2022 and heightened national fiscal deficits—and yet have failed to shield lower-income households from the resultant energy price increases. More importantly, in a more structural lens, the centralized monopolization of state-owned energy companies that control Tunisia’s energy supplies, STEG and the Tunisian Company for Refining Industries (STIR) has hampered Tunisia’s access to affordable and clean energy. The subsidy campaign has affected these companies’ capacity to invest in decarbonization, therefore jeopardizing affordable and clean energy supplies on a national scale.

STEG, the country’s national utility, generates 81 percent of Tunisia’s electricity, distributes all energy generated in Tunisia, and “exercises effective control over the strategic evolution of the [electricity] sector.” Under Tunisia’s recent democratic governments, STEG prevented the government from establishing an independent authority to oversee the electricity sector. The water sector is also highly controlled but faces considerable influence from the main labor union, the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT). In 2015, the Tunisian government tried to introduce a new public water code to address climate change but faced significant pushback from the UGTT, which sought to prevent privatization of the water sector.

To better align water supply and demand, the Tunisian government is also developing a 2050 Water Vision and Strategy. However, this process requires a “paradigm shift,” including “administrative and institutional reforms.” In response to the water scarcity issues in summer 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture issued a ban from March until the end of September 2023 on the use of potable water for washing cars, irrigating green spaces, and cleaning streets and public spaces. The Tunisian government also introduced a water curfew in April 2023, in which Sonede cut off the main water supply each night between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m.

Aside from the low-risk, short-term solutions that have failed to effectively tackle preexisting and imminent climate hazards, as seen in the water scarcity enabled by drought and mismanagement, the Saied government, elected in 2019, has done little to address climate change and its impacts. A 2021 report by the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture, Water Resources, and Fisheries notes that there is a “weakness” of governance mechanisms to address these issues, partially due to an “outdated” regulatory framework and poor coordination.

In addition to alleviating public budgetary pressures and expanding financing measures for climate projects, private sector involvement as a function of decentralization can immensely improve resource security in Tunisia. In the case of water governance, studies have reported that “even in developed countries public systems perform with lower competency than private systems” in water management. Pivoting away from centralization and institutionalizing private sector engagements would likely yield healthier water quality and more abundant water supplies, especially in areas disproportionately experiencing water scarcity, by allowing for more efficient project implementation processes, including operations, maintenance, regulation, and enforcement.

Similarly, a lack of privatization in Tunisia’s energy sector has restricted its financial and renewable energy production capacities. As suggested by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, private sector involvement—in coordination with relevant stakeholders like international organizations, financing institutions, academia, and NGOs—will likely generate more advanced food and energy security systems. As it is, already vulnerable groups like rural farmers suffer from insufficient energy sources that have undermined their livelihoods. For example, a lack of access to cooling leads to lower-quality produce, which in turn forces farmers to sell at a lower price immediately after a harvest, consequently diminishing profits.

The government has adopted a largely reactive approach toward climate mitigation, but progress is being made through the Ministry of Environment’s Draft Environmental Code, launched in June 2023. The code is the first of its kind in Tunisia and is an attempt to coordinate among the myriad legislative and regulatory documents covering the environmental sector, some of which have been in place for 30 years. The Draft Code draws on a document first produced in 2013 through a participatory approach, including civil society input. But in the highly centralized Saied government, the code risks falling prey to the interests of STEG and the UGTT, who have traditionally opposed private investment in renewable energy production. Furthermore, most private sector–led renewable energy projects are managed by foreign companies. Since 2015, there have been twenty-two renewable energy projects, only half of which have had Tunisian project leaders and only four of which have been led exclusively by Tunisian firms. To ensure an inclusive and just climate transition with the tools to seal inequality gaps, there is a need for local- and multinational-level engagement in decisionmaking as a means of decentralization beyond privatization.

Tunisia has a goal for 35 percent of its energy to be renewable by 2030 and for the country to be carbon neutral by 2050. In 2022, only 3 percent of the electricity produced in Tunisia was from renewable sources. The Tunisian government has a poor track record when it comes to renewable energy. In the 2000s, the Directorate General of Forestry forcibly annexed land for the country’s first wind farm in Borj Essalhi from local residents who had used the land for agriculture. Residents were so incensed by the Ben Ali regime’s takeover of their land that they protested by refusing to pay their electricity bills. And more recently, the Tunisian government seized 150 hectares of land from Segdoud in Gafsa for a solar farm run by French company Engie and Moroccan energy company Nareva, which the Redeyef collective land management council is seeking to reclaim. The TuNur solar project in the desert regions in southern Tunisian is another example of what has been described as “green extractivism.” The power generated is expected to be exported to Italy, Malta, and France via underground cables. It not only takes over Tunisian land for the solar farm but also requires significant water usage in an already water-scarce region, as discussed earlier, which further entrenches the resource shortages borne by already marginalized regions. Localized production and local community involvement is also much more conducive to satisfying local energy demands at a lower cost and higher efficiency level that is, most importantly, adaptive to local climate conditions.

Similarly, in December 2020, the Tunisian government signed a €31 million (almost $34 million) agreement with Germany to develop the North African country’s green hydrogen sector. However, it plans to export the majority of the green hydrogen it produces, rather than commit it to local use. This arrangement further underscores the need for Tunisia to mobilize local empowerment as a means to achieving equitable climate adaptation outcomes.

Saied’s approach has largely been to shift blame away from his own government and to exploit Tunisia’s various climate crises as a chance to attack his opponents. In response to the wheat crisis, the Tunisian government raised the purchase price for 100 grams of wheat from 130 to 140 dinars, but this increase has not had the anticipated positive effects for Tunisian farmers. To adequately address the roots and repercussions of bread shortages and general climate-induced shortages in a manner that essentially protects vulnerable groups, Saied will have to move past blaming shortages on “criminal networks.”

Conclusion

Tunisia is facing urgent threats from climate change that are impossible to ignore. Nevertheless, the Saied government has failed to prioritize climate adaptation and mitigation, and instead of taking responsibility for addressing these challenges it has exploited the outcomes of climate change, such as water and food scarcity, to put false blame on the president’s political opponents. Today, it is impossible to extricate Tunisia’s climate challenges from its governance challenges and vice versa. However, even within this extremely difficult political situation, there are several steps that can be taken to address Tunisia’s most urgent climate challenges.

The first step is in communication. Civil society organizations and the international community can work together to help make Tunisians more aware of the problem and the connection to the economic challenges and instability they are facing in their daily lives. Too often, addressing climate change is characterized as a “luxury” that poor and rural populations cannot afford to address. However, the opposite is true. The most vulnerable populations are not only the ones feeling the brunt of the effects of climate change but are also the most likely to benefit economically from climate adaptation and mitigation measures, particularly those targeting the agriculture sector. Such measures could include shifting to permaculture as an alternative to traditional industrial agriculture as a way to prevent soil erosion, lower costs, and decrease emissions.

International donors should also work with the Tunisian government to strengthen the social safety net for the most vulnerable and those most affected by climate change. Key programs and services can include cash transfers, access to credit, affordable housing away from flood zones and high drought areas, and affordable basic services such as healthcare and education. Donors are already increasingly including climate adaptation and mitigation measures in their development assistance programs, but they can do more to ensure that development is explicitly addressing climate and targeting the most vulnerable populations. Additionally, the Tunisian government can partner with international donors and the private sector to create a more sustainable renewable energy plan by focusing on solar and wind energy, which Tunisia has in abundance. And to address coastal aquifer salinity and water scarcity, donors can support the desalination project started in 2022.

However, none of the ongoing climate adaptation and mitigation plans will succeed without addressing the ongoing political and economic instability plaguing Tunisia. Failing to decentralize the government or empower local government to address local climate challenges will be a massive roadblock toward progress. And continued repression and scapegoating only serves to create additional societal unrest that makes cooperation on climate more difficult. Finally, by failing to push back on the electricity and water monopolies that are a major impediment toward privatization of these industries, the government is doing itself a disservice. Overall, Tunisia’s climate challenges require local solutions, and the best actors to devise and implement those solutions are those most impacted by the damages climate change is inflicting on Tunisia.

In this series on climate change, vulnerability, and governance, Carnegie scholars and contributors analyze how climate change impacts socioeconomically vulnerable populations and infrastructures and shapes governance systems and capacities in the MENA region.

For more in the series, see: