BONYO: Localise climate change talks

The venue of the conference, Sharm el-Sheikh is an Egyptian resort town between the desert of the Sinai Peninsula and the Red Sea.

Going by the speeches so far by a number of heads of state from developing countries, the resolutions of CoP27 are largely likely to remain like those of the previous 26 editions. Maybe I’m wrong, the world might just come together and put actions to the commitments. I pray they do.

Prominent at the talks has been the request by the African delegation to the rest of the world to honour financial commitments.  This is specifically to address what has been christened loss and damage.

But beyond the flowery speeches by leaders and players in the ‘a better world’ space, there is a need for reflection. African countries for example must demonstrate their commitments back home before barraging the rest of the world with demands.

Africa for example registers deforestation at a higher rate estimated at more than three million hectares annually. Causes of this are widespread among them wildfires, pests and diseases. However, afforestation is not heightened in similar measures despite efforts by individual countries to boost the cover.

Closer home in Kenya, it is estimated that we lose 50,000 hectares of forest annually but hardly measure up in replanting the trees. It is music to the years for afforestation aficionados like myself that Kenya now aims at planting 15 billion trees in 10.6 million hectares in the next 10 years at a cost of $5 billion.

Music to the year because only in May this year, retired President Uhuru Kenyatta also launched a similar exercise. This was dubbed the accelerated national tree-growing campaign.

Kenyatta, alongside this, also launched the global tree-growing fund with the Multi-Partner Trust Fund. This fund, he noted would seek to secure $45 million that will deliver over 1.2 billion high-quality seedlings.

It would be interesting to see how these two campaigns launched only months apart progress and deliver the desired results.

But at the crux of all these must be a deliberate commitment by both state and non-state actors to real mitigations against the effects of climate change.

The government in expressing its commitment must match its promises equally with funds as well as proper monitoring and evaluation to achieve success. It is not enough to just launch campaigns, rolling out state funds to this goes along the way.

Down the stream, regional governments must equally appropriate sufficient funds and personnel to deliver on this critical mandate. A good starting point has been the passage of the climate change bill that over 40 counties have so far passed and are in various stages of action. This must continue full steam and not be left as a tool to hoodwink donors and private sector investors.

More strategic should be the involvement of the local man in these efforts. Speaking to the ordinary man about town on the impact and need to mitigate against climate change, many are careless. They are busy living and chasing life, rightfully so to even think about the future of planet earth.

This, therefore, calls for the localisation of first and foremost information on climate change. This will go a long way in sensitising people on the ‘so what’ to interest them in it.

State officers must be deliberate in ensuring that climate change messaging is disseminated at every available opportunity. Like they implore delegates at conferences to take time out of their busy schedules to explore Kenya’s tourism offerings, they must also encourage them to plant a tree or two.

Further on, schoolchildren should be interested in this conversation. They are the critical mass needed to aid these mitigations in the nation’s future. This must be tailored to their interest for it not to seem like a talk down at them.

If we can be successful in taking out the conversation from boardrooms and conferences to the streets, villages and schools then we can demand better. We must mainstream climate change talks at every conversation in the church, mosque and all social spaces. The results of non-action to mitigate this crisis must preoccupy Kenya and Kenyans to effectively combat it.

Then Kenya and its African peers can agitate for the $100 billion capital to be deployed at speed and at scale to decisively deal with the climate change crisis in the continent.