New law on the way as alarm bells ring over global warming

The government has formed a taskforce to develop a national policy and law on climate change as the latest report by United Nations experts warn of increased diseases, severe flooding and food shortages in the country due to effects of the phenomenon.

Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Water and Natural Resources, Prof Judy Wakhungu, says the taskforce is expected to formulate a roadmap on how to deal with the effects of global warming.

Prof Wakhungu says in a Gazette notice that the law and policy on Climate Change would enhance co-ordination and implementation of adaptation measures on the effects of climate change.

The United Nations InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the devastating global warming effects in the country are real and there is an urgent need to put in place adaptation measures.

The UN panellists report says the effects of climate change include increased diseases, severe flooding, food shortages and massive coastal flooding.

The coastal flooding could cost Mombasa County more than Sh90 billion in losses by 2030, the report says.

“In Mombasa, by 2030 the population at risk of extreme water levels is estimated to be between 170,700 to 266,300 inhabitants, while economic assets at risk are between US$ 0.68 billion(Sh57.8 billion) and 1.06 billion(Sh90.1billion),” the report adds.

 The UN scientists warn global warming would reduce maize production in Kenya by a fifth and while yields on other staple food including beans would shrink by 68 percent.

 Other crops to be adversely affected include tea and coffee; as the climate change also sparks a return of highland malaria and new diseases mainly contracted from wild and domestic animals.

“Africa currently experiences high burdens of health outcomes whose incidence and geographic range could be affected by changing temperature and precipitation patterns, including malnutrition, diarrheal diseases, and malaria and other vector-borne diseases, with most of the impact on women and children,” the report adds.

Effects of climate change will also result in insects like ticks becoming the biggest source of human and livestock diseases.

“Movement of malaria parasites into new highland regions will mean more epidemics and more deaths because residents of such areas have no natural immunity,” the UN experts add.

These revelations come at a time the government is struggling to increase forest cover to international standards of 10 percent by 2030 even as glaciers and forest cover around Mt Kenya and The Aberdares diminish at alarming rates and mangrove forests along the Kenyan coast continue to shrink alarmingly.

President Kenyatta says climate change is a reality and Kenya and other African countries have to come up with mitigation measures.

During Nigeria’s centenary celebration, President Kenyatta urged President Goodluck Jonathan, to use its UN Security Council membership to push Africa’s interests on climate change issues.

“Climate change is a reality whose pernicious effects we can no longer ignore. It is the single most influential factor affecting security,” he said.

As part of efforts to increase forest cover to the projected 10 percent by 2020, researchers have developed tree species that are adapted to arid counties and the technology is already being implemented on a pilot basis innine counties namely Tharaka, Kitui, Machakos,Embu,Siaya, Homabay, Laikipia, Turkana and Marsabit.

Prof Wakhungu says the government had set a target to plant 50 million trees this financial year, in a bid to fight climate change, which has become a global challenge.

“We have to reach the 50 million target set for my ministry and I am counting on this technology to help increase our forest cover,” she said.

She said ravages associated with climate change such as floods, drought and scarcity of food and water was a threat to environmental sustainability and the fight against extreme poverty and hunger.

The technology which involves harvesting rain water in arid areas to grow trees and crops on farms as well as on communal land has been extended to 19 other countries in Sub Saharan Africa, whose senior environmental officers have received training from Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) for the past 19 years.

At the Kenyan coast, another UN report reveals that mangrove forests are disappearing at an alarming rate calling for urgent measures to reverse the trend.

United Nations Environmental Programme says the mangroves are disappearing due to effects of climate change, human activities that include over-exploitation for fuel, timber and their clearance for other types of aquaculture.

Studies show that mangrove ecosystems, which make up less than 0.4 percent of the world’s forests, are being lost at the rate of about one per cent per year.

 “In some areas, the rate may be as high as two to eight percent per year. From 20 percent to 35 percent of the world’s mangrove area has been lost since 1980,” Unep says.

The report warns that in as few as 100 years, the world’s mangrove forests may become so degraded and reduced in area that they would be considered to have “functionally disappeared.”

According to Unep, mangroves are an important bulkhead against climate change.

They afford protection for coastal areas from tidal waves and cyclones and are among the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics.

It is estimated that almost 80 percent of global fish catches are directly or indirectly dependent on mangroves.