Climate Change

The Ministry of Environment is working towards a developing a comprehensive climate change policy in Kenya and a fully-budgeted National Climate Change Response Investment framework to address the challenges of climate change.

According to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources Lawrence Lenayapa the main challenge the country is facing while dealing with climate change is the segmentation of policies, laws and regulations that address climate in different sectors.

Speaking in Nairobi during a climate change consultative workshop, Lenayapa said a fully budgeted investment framework also needs to be put in place.

Currently, there is no climate change policy in Kenya, and efforts by many different groups in fighting the phenomenon could bear much more fruit.

"One of the main challenges we have as a country, is that policies, laws and regulations that address climate change are segmented in various sectoral laws, and are not well co-ordinate," Lenayapa told participants.

The two day forum is organized by the United Nations Development Programme, and for the first time, participants included women, and youth groups that have previously been ignored in climate change discussions.

The groups will create awareness of the various challenges affecting them, after which the information gathered will be presented to the Kenyan government delegation going to Copenhagen Denmark for the climate change talks.

"We will ensure that all information from all groups is articulated," said George Krhoda, a professor of Environment and Geography in the University of Nairobi.

The effects of climate change are affecting the developing countries more than the contributors who are mainly from the developed world.

African parliamentarians met in Nairobi early this month and agreed to represent the continent with a one voice.

They agreed that the Western countries must contribute more money to help Africa cope with the vagaries of climate change.

The Copenhagen meeting in December hopes to seal a deal which will replace the Kyoto protocol which expires in 2012.

On forest cover, he said that to increase it from the current 1.7 percent to the 10 percent required internationally, the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources in conjunction with the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife have a programme that will guide this type of investment on tree planting and growing.

He said that under this programme an additional 4.1 million hectares will be brought under forest cover through rehabilitation of degraded areas, creation of new forests, tree planting in farmlands and the dry lands, urban and roadside tree planting at a cost of Ksh.80 billion for the next 20 years.

"We must take the issue of Climate Change very seriously because Kenya is extremely vulnerable since our economy relies heavily on Climate-vulnerable sectors such agriculture, water, energy, transport and tourism hence the need to develop partnerships and strategies to address complex impacts of global warming," he said.