Kenya will need Sh6b for climate change project in 2030

President Uhuru Kenyatta has said that Kenya will have to set aside Sh6 billion for the implementation of the Nationally Determined Commitment (NDC)—an initiative put in place to combat climate change.

Speaking during a virtual Climate Ambition Summit which was hosted by the UK government, and attracted an attendance of 70 countries; Uhuru said Nairobi was inclined to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 32 per cent come 2030. The figure is an upgrade on the initial 30 per cent and the changes will be made by December 31, 2020—which is the deadline.

“To implement the required mitigation and adaptation actions for the updated NDC, we will require US$62 million (Sh6 billion) between 2020 and 2030,” he noted.

Some of the attendees were 10 African countries among them DRC, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.

Stakeholders in the climate and energy sector such as Power Shift Africa, which is based in Nairobi, Kenya, lauded African countries for putting feet forward and embracing the initiative.

“We have endless sources of clean energy, from wind and solar to geothermal and hydro. As Africa uses these non-polluting forms of energy to power our development, we can show the rest of the world that we don’t need to foul our air and distort our climate to bring prosperity,” said Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa.

The summit was in coherence with the global Paris Agreement which aims to involve various countries to scale down their carbon emission to reduce the greenhouse effects.

However, Mr Adow argued that the agreements in the Paris recommendations still need tightening up to achieve their objectives.

He said, “…the Paris Agreement was designed to be a dynamic accord which called on countries to strengthen national plans every five years so we can bend that global heating curve downwards to achieve the 1.5-degree Celsius goal contained in the agreement.”