Kenyans to keep pressure on climate demands

Nairobi, 9 December 2022: Following the unsatisfactory outcomes for Africa at the 27^th Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27) which ended in Egypt recently, climate change activists from Kenya plan to persist with their demands and keep up the momentum ahead of the next COP set for Dubai next year.

Addressing the press in Nairobi during a meeting by the Kenya Platform on Climate Governance (KPCG), Charles Mwangi, the Head of Programmes and Research at the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance urged the Kenyan climate activists not to relent even as COP27 disappointed Africa.

“COP27 was not a progression, but lowered the bar from the Glasgow meeting held in the UK in 2021 on many fronts including on energy, climate finance, loss and damage and failure to recognize Africa as a region of special needs and circumstances,” he said.

Mwangi said COP27 failed to address Africa’s unique circumstances, offering instead some false solutions.

For example, he termed suggestions by the global north to use insurance as a means to compensate for loss and damage as a false solution to the climate crisis.

Mwangi said climate change is a planetary crisis, widely recognized as a stressor that undermines sustainable development and the resilience of ecosystems and societies.

Tumal Orto Galdibe, a community leader of the Gabra indigenous people, and camel pastoralist from Maikona, Marsabit County said close to 500 of his goats have died from the ongoing drought including those he pays special attention to rear within an enclosure. “Who will pay for my loss?” He asked.

Grace Lolim from Isiolo said she has been practicing dairy animals for years but this year’s drought has killed all 16 dairy cows due to a lack of water and pasture.

According to Witness Tsuma, Chair, Maendeleo ya Wanawake, Kilifi said women in the county have been disarmed by the ongoing drought. “Women are no longer able to feed their children. “Some are forced to boil soil to lull children’s hunger pangs,” she said.

According to Mwangi, it is clear that the impacts of climate change reach far beyond the environmental sector affecting poverty, economic growth, peace and stability, displacement, fragility, and local, national, and regional security.

The most recent scientific climate evidence by the Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) points to the severity of climate change as expected to increase, affecting human rights such as the rights to water, food, health, and an adequate standard of living.

The IPCC reports point to Africa as a region projected to suffer the worst impacts of climate change, given its widespread poverty, limited resilience, and adaptive capacities.

“The combined impacts of the climate crisis and economic development projects are resulting in large pressures upon indigenous peoples and local communities, especially women and youth, many of whom live in fragile ecosystems like Marsabit, Isiolo, Turkana, and entire northern Kenya who rely on the climate-dependent natural resources,” he said.

The Kenya Platform for Climate Governance, an initiative of PACJA seeks to be a democratic, inclusive and transparent network of CSOs in Kenya with a shared vision of a fair, equitable, ecologically just, inclusive, youth and gender-responsive response to climate change.

It delivers its mandate towards the National Climate Change Action Plan priorities, National Determined Contributions, and accelerated efforts climate actions through developing sector-wide capacities.

The meeting-taking place in Nairobi aims at creating and maintaining partnerships for Kenya and building a common understanding of the coordinated climate actions.