Delving into the role of Legislatures and their buy-in towards Climate Legislation: Who has to do what?

The East African community has established the Community’s Climate Change Policy. This policy is designed to guide Partner States and other stakeholders in preparing and implementing collective measures to address climate change in the region while ensuring sustainable social and economic development.

The policy sets out statements and actions to steer climate change adaptation and mitigation to decrease the region’s vulnerability, enhance adaptive capacity, and build socioeconomic resilience of vulnerable populations and ecosystems.

While policies are guidelines or principles that direct decision-making and establish the framework within which an organisation or government operates, laws ensure formal legal rules enacted by a legislative body that govern behaviour and are enforceable by the judicial system.

In EAC only, Kenya has come up with a climate change Law while in other partner states climate change is addressed in the broader sense of policies and strategies.

The Programme on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Eastern and Southern Africa is a five-year initiative of COMESA, EAC and SADC to enable COMESA-EAC-SADC Member States to increase investments in climate resilient and carbon efficient agriculture and its linkages to forestry, land use and energy practices by 2016.

Would this be time for lawmakers to own tasks?

Early July the East Africa legislative assembly’s committee on water resources and Climate change embarked on Dialogues on climate change Mitigation of impacts across the region. During this dialogue described Climate change as a security threat and urged that if any partner lists security threats climate change should be among the mapped.  East Like any other region in Africa, the East Africa Region is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

In 2023, at least 15,700 lost their lives due to extreme weather. According to Reliefweb, at least 479 people have been killed, and more than 5.2 million people were affected by the heavy rains and flooding between September and mid-December 2023, with nearly two million people displaced in Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Burundi, and Ethiopia as of 15 December.

Hon Jacqueline Amongin representing Uganda in EALA warned of a potential increase of Internally Displaced persons and refugees due to Climate Change effects if nothing is done to create awareness among partner states.

However, the commitment by legislatures doesn’t exclude the financial commitment from the EAC to ensure the action is taken to address the climate change effects in the region.

 The fiscal year 2024/2025 for the EAC was centred around achieving Sustainable Economic Transformation through Fiscal Consolidation and Investment in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation for Improved Livelihoods.    The review of the EAC Climate Change Policy and Strategy is among the four priorities of the EAC this fiscal year.

Article 49 of the EAC Treaty establishes EALA as the legislative body of the Community. Like most legislatures, EALA has core functions including legislating, oversight, and representation. Therefore, the House commits to oversight the use of the budget to ensure climate change is covered.

During the dialogues, the House Speaker, Rt Hon Joseph Ntakirutimana confirmed that EALA will ensure the fiscal budget 2024-2025 finds solutions to climate change. When he was addressing his peers and stakeholders during the dialogue, he promised that EALA would monitor whether partner states were implementing climate policies.

Climate Finance, a spinal cord for breaking the climate change barrier.  What is the strategy?

The EAC Climate Finance Strategy outlines strategic actions to address common barriers and find solutions to enable the scaling up of climate finance collaboratively across all Partner States. These states include the Republic of Burundi, the Republic of Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, the United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, and The Democratic Republic of Congo.

The strategy indicates that the partner states combined Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), require at least US$ 21 billion per year until 2030 even before the Democratic Republic of Congo joined the EAC in April 2022. Less than average annual international public finance flows (US$ 2.5 billion) between 2013 and 2018. Though finance is key in addressing the climate change effects issues, the roles of other parties may be needed to ensure no one is left behind.

The role of stakeholders’ engagement in the action remains undeniable

The EAC works closely with regional stakeholders. Part EALA stakeholders are civil society organizations and other partners. Determined to increase awareness of the effects of Climate change among the partner states, EALA as an organ of EAC has been collaborating with PACJA in diverse areas including addressing Climate action at the regional level.

For instance, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) is partnering with EAC countries in the Access to Energy transition project. This project was launched in April 2023, by the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA, through the Kenya Platform on Climate Governance (KPCG), the Africa Coalition for Sustainable Energy and Access, in partnership with German-watch launched a project that will bring consumers to the centre of energy debates.

This project was implemented in five countries including Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, and Botswana, the project is dubbed “Ensuring a People-Centered Energy Transition in Africa through Civil Society Engagement” and will ensure that energy transition in Africa is driven by the people and making sure it is inclusive to all. Yet again PACJA is implementing the access to energy transition (AET) Spanning from East Africa to the SADCC region.

Apart from that, PACJA engages with regional and continental lawmakers to ensure that policies and laws are developed in the interest of communities and climate action. In partnership with the Pan-African Parliament, both institutions established the African Climate Legislation Initiative. These initiatives have tirelessly worked to develop the climate change Model Law, which will guide the domestication of laws and policies in African countries, including the East African Community (EAC).

When addressing the participants, Dr. Mithika Mwenda, Executive Director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), affirmed the commitment of civil society to raising awareness among communities in the East African Community about the effects of climate change.

“For transition to be just, vulnerable people cannot be kept out of the decision table. Civil Society should and must be at the frontline to ensure a frank and inclusive engagement of people on the ground,” said Dr Mithika Mwenda, the Executive Director, of PACJA.

Read the Dr Mithika’s speech at EALA during the dialogues on Climate Change.

Follow discussion and insights from EALA lawmakers discussing climate change Mitigation of impacts across the region