Focus shifts to managing climate change
Environmental degradation and resource depletion are among the key challenges facing our world today. If not arrested in good time, they have the potential to threaten our very survival. Such challenges include deforestation as we seek to produce more food and fuel to match increasing population pressures on natural resources and the destruction of water catchment areas, pollution, and poor waste management. Resources breed conflicts the world over, especially natural resources such as land, grazing fields, and water sources. Water might rapidly become one of the major reasons for wars. Yet, with proper planning and management, this can be avoided. Within the framework of the renewed political dialogue between Kenya and the European Union, we are working closely together on several key areas, including environmental protection and climate change adaptation. Our focus is now shifting from providing technical and financial aid to a fuller partnership aimed at tackling strategic interests and challenges, translating political and socio-economic commitments into concrete programmes. A lot of work has been done at the international level in terms of environmental protection and climate change. In 2015, within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal and legally binding global climate deal. Among some of the key elements governments agreed on was to strengthen society’s ability to deal with the impacts of climate change, providing continued and enhanced international support for adaptation. The European Union agreed to support this agenda, including reducing emissions and building resilience to climate change impacts, especially in developing countries. For the Kenyan Government, response to climate change is a national priority. That is why it adopted the National Climate Change Action Plan — to enable the country to reduce vulnerability to climate change by proposing adaptation and mitigation strategies and enhance response to climate change. This response encourages people-centred development, putting communities first as they are the most affected by climate change and the effects of environmental degradation. It is for these reasons that the Kenyan Government and the European Union are partnering in the Water Towers Protection and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation project, which was launched on June 23 in Eldoret. This project is expected to help eradicate poverty through improving the productivity of the ecosystem in two of Kenya’s five water towers — at Mt Elgon and Cherengany Hills. It is a six-year programme joining together the collaborative effort of several implementing agencies and 11 counties within the catchment area. The Ministry of Environment and the implementing agencies will strengthen the county governments’ knowledge and skills to coordinate the restoration, conservation, and management of water towers. The Kenya Forest Service, in partnership with the Kenya Water Towers Agency, The Kenya Wildlife Service, and The National Climate Change Secretariat will formulate integrated management plans and implement the Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Plan. The county governments will be supported to identify, appraise, and implement rehabilitation, reclamation, and restoration of ecologically and economically sustainable land use systems. It is an ambitious programme which, when fully implemented, will positively impact the lives of communities and conserve the environment for present and future generations. It will also improve the lives of the communities through ecologically and economically sustainable land use systems and livelihood interventions. This programme is a key step to taking action in tackling climate change through sustainable ecosystem services.