How to turn environmental warnings into solutions

Pokot and Turkana miners work side by side at a gold pit in Kampi Karaya. [File, Standard]

In Turkana, farmers no longer speak of drought as a season — it has become a constant companion. Rains that once arrived with predictability now come late, fall too hard, or do not come at all. Seeds are planted with hope, but harvested with uncertainty.

For millions of Kenyans whose livelihoods depend on the land, climate change is not an abstract global debate; ni suala la maisha ya kila siku — it is the difference between food on the table and an empty granary. It is these lived realities that the Global Environment Outlook 7 (GEO-7) report, released last week in Nairobi by the United Nations Environment Programme, seeks to explain and urgently address. GEO-7 is a comprehensive scientific assessment of the planet’s health.