Climate change to halt economic growth

NAIROBI, Friday

Kenya could lose up to three per cent of its Sh2.6 trillion GDP annually by 2030 due to global warming, a donor-funded study on the impact of climate change showed.

The country is already feeling the consequences of climate change including the spread of diseases and the movement of wild animals to areas where they were not present before.

A prolonged drought that choked growth and cut output in sectors such as agriculture, which accounts for nearly a quarter of its gross domestic product, is just easing off.

"Climate impacts cost Sh37.5 billion annually. Future annual climate change impacts add up to nearly three per cent of GDP by 2030," said a summary of the British and Danish-funded report, entitled "Economics of Climate Change in Kenya".

Carbon emissions

Although total carbon emissions by the country were low during the study, it warned that they might double by 2030 in line with planned population and economic growth.

Poor nations want rich countries to cut emissions by 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 to avert the worst effects of climate change.

But many industrialised nations fear such cuts are out of reach, especially in an economic downturn.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Africa’s most outspoken leader on global warming, has demanded that the West compensate the world’s poorest continent for climate change.

The report found that Kenya’s agriculture and transport sectors were its main sources of emissions, but said that full studies on low carbon options and the development of new strategies could mitigate against the effects of global warming.

"There is a real reason for Kenya to start acting now," said Paul Watkiss, one of the authors of the study.

Some Kenyan companies such as electricity producer KenGen and sugar miller Mumias have developed Clean Development Mechanism project that will soon allow them to sell carbon credits on the international markets.

National carrier Kenya Airways has been planting trees in the Ngong Hills, in the capital Nairobi, which its planes fly over every day.

— Reuters