A big push to tame climate change
The drought in many parts of Kenya, brought about by the La Niña phenomenon may just be a signal that a lot of changes have taken place in the atmosphere. On a daily basis, the media have continued to post grim pictures of the extreme hunger in various areas in Kenya mainly due to the failure of rains. Disturbing images of helpless nomadic people scorched by the sun, as they witness their animals succumb to starvation may just be a wake-up call to action by policy makers and other actors. But these sad stories making the headlines are no longer confined to the arid and semi-arid areas as has been in the previous decades. They are now being replicated in other places. The vagaries of weather are not just about lack of precipitation, as even the El Niño phenomenon, when there is rain, has never been very kind. Previously, we have witnessed flooding not only in the Kano plains in Kisumu County and Budalang’i in Busia, but also in many other areas with loss of lives, pastures and crops. Floods have always left in their wake diseases, famine and malnutrition. These extreme weather conditions are a clear pointer that climate change is real and as much as a there may be doubters amongst us, global temperatures are getting to alarming levels. ANTHROPOGENIC WARMING On December 28, last year, Kenya ratified the Paris Agreement, which came into force on January 29, this year. This shows commitment to a low carbon pathway. The Paris Agreement, adopted by 195 countries in December 2015, is the first ever commitment by countries to combat the anthropogenic warming of the atmosphere. The pact, whose aim is to reinforce a global response to the menace of climate change by keeping the temperature rise at two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, strives to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It also seeks to strengthen the ability of various countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. These goals may sound ambitious, but the developed countries, which are the biggest polluters, have pledged to support developing nations through a climate financing of $100 billion (Sh10 trillion), provision of required technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework. Hopefully, this will propel them to the next level in their respective objectives, encapsulated in their respective Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). One way that countries will achieve their NDCs is through a radical transformation to clean and sustainable development, which Kenya is already making great strides in. Kenya has actively tapped into renewable energy, harnessing its geothermal, hydrothermal, solar and wind powers. This may just be a fraction of the programmes the government has embarked on to realise its domestic pledges. A REALITY It is, however, crucial that others actively participate in making the Paris Agreement a reality. They might have to support climate action by investing in renewable energy and adopting measures to guarantee resilience to the effects of climate change. Corporations may be surprised by how much can be saved by embracing energy efficiency and reducing emissions. By investing in renewable energy, they can benefit from cheaper energy, reducing risks resulting from market unpredictability. It is imperative that those not actively involved do so by greening their operations and supply chains and be active leaders in the fight against climate change. The decline in prices of wind and solar energy is a boon to low carbon economies. Civil society, the private sector, academia, non-governmental organisations and research institutions must also provide the much-needed impetus to confront the elephant in the room. To be lauded are a number of initiatives by independent actors towards this goal. The Kenya Red Cross Society, the UN, with projects such as its Ecosystem Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (Ebafosa) the African Centre of Technology Studies, are just a few of such institutions. Ebafosa propagates adaptation based on the ecological diversity and linking various stakeholders on the agricultural value chain using clean and renewable energy. It is only through this inclusivity and synergy that remarkable progress can be achieved.