Economics of climatic change: No longer remote, let's timely tame it

A camel herder takes his herd for grazing in Kalama community conservancy in Samburu county. [David Gichuru, Standard]

Climate change has lots of sceptics, including a former USA president. But the reality on the ground is slowly winning them over. I have personally noted that fruits are ripening later in my village, the rain coming later and insects that we never used too see like mosquitoes are common. In fact, if Kenya were to be recolonised, I doubt if the Mzungu would settle in the white highlands where malaria was unheard of.

Did you hear of recent cyclones on East African coast? Flooding in South Africa? Noted how Nairobi has become wetter and colder? One farmer from Nyahururu has narrated how he used to harvest potatoes three times a year, then twice and now is waiting for the rains.

The reality of climatic change is being felt at global level  going by the number of meetings focused on that and money going to mitigating the effects.

Research in climatic change is also on an upward trend. The glacial and icecaps melting are the other evidence that climate change is real. A 1937 photo of Mt Kilimanjaro icecap and today leaves no doubt that the weather and the climate have changed.

The COP26 meeting last year in Glasgow, Kyoto Protocol and Paris Accords before that demonstrate that climate change has become a global issue threatening our livelihoods and security.

It has been noted that one of the courses of conflicts in northern Kenya is drought, as communities fight over pasture and grazing lands. Conflicts end as soon as rain falls. Think of the situation if the drought is prolonged. 

A visit to Hoover dam on Nevada - Arizona border about two decades ago left no doubt that the water levels had fallen. Reports indicate that it is worse now. Noted how boreholes are attractions when selling houses? This is an indicator that water is becoming scarce.

Curiously, I heard of greenhouse effect around 30 years. Then it appeared as a fairy tale. I was teaching physics and explaining how particles in the air, because of pollution, reflect back the heat that should naturally escape into space. That leads to global warming.

In the three decades we have grown economically burning more fossil fuels, which increase the green house effect. The more a country develops economically, the more power it demands, and by extension, the more it contributes to global warming and climate change. A proxy measure of your economic status is the amount of power that you use per year.

Countries are caught in a dilemma; should they cut their economic growth to slow down climate change or leave it to the next generation to deal with consequences? Children like Greta Thunberg are saying no.

Innovations such as carbon credits have been tried, given that climate change has no borders. Countries or companies that pollute more can buy credits from less pollutant ones. But the ultimate solution is to change our lifestyles. I was surprised that in Hamburg, Germany, you are more worried over being hit by a bicycle than a car. It is when politics come into climate change that things become interesting. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions would lead to de-industrialisation and job losses. Some developed countries shift polluting factories to less developed countries, leading to job losses at home. Remember American first? 

In countries where unemployment is so high, such polluting industries are welcome. It seems poverty is one of the drivers of climate change because such poor people have few choices or access to clean or renewable energy sources. But pollution has no respect for borders, that is why climate change is everyone’s business.

So where do we go from here?

As COP26 meeting demonstrated, it is not easy to subsume national interests under global interests, with some countries postponing cutting down the use of fossil fuels by 50 years. 

Beyond national interests, the power of science and innovations may be the best route to mitigating climatic change. We need more renewable energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal and hydros. 

Shift to electric cars and trains will reduce the use of fossil fuels like oil. It seems where the government fails, the market succeeds. Who thought one day we shall charge our cars like a phone? Climate change will cause lots of disruptions. Noted how car manufacturers cleverly went through hybrid cars before electric ones? Was it to reduce disruptions to the industry?

There is a consensus that we must mitigate the effects of climatic change. It will not only need the visible hand of the government through new laws and regulations, but also the invisible hand of the market. Climatic change has economic, pollical and social consequences. We have to mitigate them. We are the generation on the stage. Our industrialisation should be cleaner and more friendly to the planet.

Some suggest that finding a habitable exoplanet or terraforming moon or Mars might save us from the realities of climatic change on this planet. That is futuristic. For now, let’s protect the only habitable planet so far, our only home.

XN Iraki, Associate Professor, University of Nairobi