Leo Mutisya
Until this week, Ukambani or the so-called Lower Eastern, was yet to receive the short rains, ordinarily expected from October 15 annually. For years (except in unique years of drought and famine) this was true. The rains would be preceded by a ‘curtain raiser’, a downpour in the middle of the dry season popularly known as ‘ndetua makonde’ to the Kamba of Machakos.
In recent years, though, the patterns have changed. The short rains are now late and even shorter. It is difficult to harvest anything in some areas of Machakos today without resorting to irrigation, for those with the muscle and money.
Things are thicker in Northern Frontier counties where animals are dying due to severe droughts. Even wildlife is threatened as is being reported by the media. The hashtag #DryDeath based on superb coverage by Citizen TV trended. We have watched on TV and social media the heart-breaking reports coming from the coastal counties.
CNN aired this on November 14 and 19 against the backdrop of the COP26. Larry Madowo posted the clip on his timeline on Facebook with the caption – “Heart-breaking video of drought in Kilifi.”
While this was going on, an interesting screenshot made rounds on WhatsApp groups during the 7th Devolution Conference in Wote, Makueni. People were taking selfies with a giant fruit christened Jack fruit showcased by Busia County, which it touted as follows:
“Due to its high nutritive value and sweet taste, Busia County booth at devolution conference in Makueni is experiencing great traffic of people who are interested in the fruit. Some even demanded to taste it. Jack fruit tree is also key in climate change adaptation and mitigation.”
For this article the terms adaptation and mitigation, are crucial. These were some of the key terms flying at the Glasgow climate conference.
Now, while adaptation is taken to mean anticipating the advance effects of climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimise the damage they can cause, or taking advantage of the opportunities that may arise, mitigation focuses on the remedy – making the effects of climate change less severe by preventing or reducing the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, the huge, sweet fruit cannot help the people of Northern Kenya and those affected by the ongoing drought in coastal region. It will require rainwater or irrigation, if it survives. These are investments and while necessary they have proven expensive.
How much would it cost, for example, the people of Mbiuni sub-county in Mwala, Machakos, to irrigate their crops from an already poisoned Athi River? Equally, how expensive would it be for the nomadic communities of Garissa County to insure their invaluable goats and camels against adverse weather conditions? Would it even make sense if the Quality Meat Packers located along Kangundo Road were to relocate to Mwingi town to make the abattoirs easily accessible?
Adaptation is expensive. The United Nations Environmental Programme estimates annual adaptation costs (includes planning, preparing for, facilitating, and implementing adaptation measures) in developing countries at $70 billion, a figure which is projected to reach $140-300 billion in 2030 and $280-500 billion in 2050.
The UNEP Adaptation Gap Report for 2020 paints a gloomy picture among nation states. The report finds that while nations have advanced in planning, huge gaps remain in finance for developing countries and bringing adaptation projects to the stage where they bring real protection against climate impacts such as droughts, floods, and sea-level rise.
So, what did COP26 achieve in lieu of funding? Pre-COP26, the developed world had promised up to $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer countries. This is yet to be met and COP26 did not help much. Some sources have indicated the pledges as amounting to $96 billion a year by 2022. These are just estimates.
One of the key areas of contention, watered down in the final statement, was on providing these pledges via grants as opposed to loans. The BBC reports that: “By 2018, about three-quarters of the government money made available for climate action in developing countries was in the form of loans that need to be paid back, rather than grants that do not”.
This strings-attached approach affects the quality of the funding and if countries like Kenya were to depend on it to ameliorate the impact of climate change, little would change. It is probably time to be innovative and focus on home-grown initiatives.
COP27 will be hosted in Africa. This presents an opportune moment to pick and learn from the failures and success of COP26. And African media should start preparing to take the lead in setting the agenda – exposing impacts of global warming, holding Africa’s leadership to account, interacting with various research reports conducted by various actors especially mandated UN bodies and localising that for easy mastication of local audiences that are adversely impacted by climate change.
