Kenya to pay heavily for failure to tackle climate change

Kenya’s failure to take action on climate change will result in losses running to trillions of shillings ranging from reduced arable land to deaths from hunger, a top climate scholar has warned.

But this can be reversed if economic plans are revised to include climate change scenarios and how to lessen its effects.

“We are in the centre of the storm whichever way we look at it,” said Prof Richard Odingo, the vice chairman of the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, responsible for guiding nations on how to lessen climate change effects.

Climate change will mean higher temperatures in countries like Kenya, to peak in 2050 at an additional two degrees centigrade and 7.5 degrees more by 2090 if no action is taken today, research shows.

Already, rising temperatures have resulted in melting of glacier at Mount Kenya, leading to unpredictable water levels downstream.

Glaciers elsewhere are also melting with the water adding to ocean levels. In Kenya, the rise of the Indian Ocean will result in the loss of land used to grow mangoes, cashew nuts and coconuts.

This will cost the country Sh35 billion annually in addition to loss of habitat and arable land.

“If we leave out climate change on our economic planning, then we can never again assume that all things are equal,” said Prof Odingo.

He spoke in Nairobi when climate change experts from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) met to find out how the region can lessen effects of the phenomena.

Experts at the meeting said water and electricity rationing in Kenya were the clearest indicator that the country was already suffering from effects of climate change.

The experts warned of a “hell on earth” kind of scenario if the government and other IGAD members fail to take action like strict environmental conservation and afforestation.

In Kenya, the recommendation is to revisit Vision 2030 and incorporate it with climate change. Predictions show that Northern Kenya will experience even drier conditions as Sahara desert progresses into sub-Sahara Africa.

Common position
The call for Kenya to act came as leaders of 10 African countries met in Ethiopia on Monday to try to agree on a common position on climate change ahead of crucial UN talks in Denmark in December to decide how future investments in reducing global warming will be conducted.

The African Union said Africa will demand for compensation for damages caused by global warming and a common negotiation position for the continent.

Another global forum, aimed at guiding the world to lessen effects of climate change, also started in Nairobi with the message for an increase in growing of trees.