Kenya needs to enact laws to safeguard our climate and pave way for growth

What you need to know:

  • Even as we endeavour to undertake a low carbon-resilient development path, it will take time to realise if we do not have sufficient energy to develop.
  • Our efforts to increase our use of geothermal and wind power are commendable.

The 20th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Lima, Peru, concluded last Sunday, two days beyond its schedule.

Kenya attended because we are a developing country trying to address climate change and reduce its adverse impacts on our peoples.

The conference is, therefore, essential to our efforts in tackling poverty through our sustainable development aspirations envisioned in policies such as Vision 2030.

In addition, as part of the global family, our needs and contexts can only be given voice as we collectively strive to find solutions to the climate change effects.

In this regard it is critical that this year’s Climate Change Bill and Policy are enacted for two reasons: First, to provide guidance for climate action by all stakeholders.

Second, it is to provide guidance when we invoke the red line in climate change negotiations on issues that would undermine our development aspirations and place undue burdens on us.

Each country is supposed to present intended nationally determined contributions, which are national climate action pledges, ahead of the 2015 Paris meetings whose collective aim is to cut emissions in order to contain global average temperature rise to below 2°C.

NOT ABLE TO AGREE

The Lima Call for Action provided useful guidance to countries as they choose their commitments.

Countries are to provide information to help the world judge whether the pledges are adequate and equitable.

There was a clause that no country could backslide from their prior commitment.

However, governments were not able to agree on a robust way of assessing their commitments.

It is important to note that the countries to which the issue of cutting emissions really applies include the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia, and Canada.

Because of their substantial economic development, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa are also included.

Kenya currently emits 0.003 per cent greenhouse gas, which is statistically nothing. However, with aspirations under Vision 2030 that include large infrastructural activities such as the Lapsset and development in the counties and the extractive industries, our emissions will increase.

Even as we endeavour to undertake a low carbon-resilient development path, it will take time to realise if we do not have sufficient energy to develop.

Our efforts to increase our use of geothermal and wind power are commendable.

Unfortunately their inclusion in our energy supply will still not be enough to support the enormous infrastructure needed to realise Vision 2030.

Therefore, the availability of affordable clean technologies and energy-efficient systems is necessary.

The ability to access the technologies, systems, and skills require more financial resources than can be provided by the Exchequer.

Under the convention there is the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, which means that the more developed a country is, the more responsibilities and capabilities it has.

HISTORICAL RESPONSIBILITY

Another principle is that of historical responsibility. The industrialised countries’ in the past two centuries developed using economic models based on types of energy sources that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide.

The science of climate has evolved over a long time, but global thinking around those consequences converged 30 years ago.

The Lima conference kicked finance to Paris, therefore putting into jeopardy much of the untapped potential for climate action in vulnerable developing countries.

In addition, loss and damage — impacts to which it is not possible to adapt — was not elevated as an independent issue within the future regime.

Such lack of progress to move forward on supporting vulnerable developing countries that will experience loss and damage in their communities means governments will need to work a lot harder to close the gap between what they are doing, what their people want them to do, and what science requires.

Negotiations will commence in February 2015 in Geneva, then June in Bonn prior to Paris in December 2015. A luta continua!

Ms Wandera is the convenor for the Road to Conference of the Parties Taskforce in the Kenya Climate Change Working Group. ([email protected])