Be ready for climate-related disasters, scientists caution

Climate scientists are predicting more environment-related disasters if the world continues to drag its feet in addressing the endless carbon dioxide pollution, in science known as Green House Gas emissions.

The United Nations has tasked countries to strive to cut emissions to at least 1.5°C by 2030, but the emergence of heavier floods, severe cyclones, heat waves and droughts threatens this ambition.

The 2024 edition of the UN Environment Programme’s (Unep’s) Emissions Gap Report shows how much higher nations must aim. The environment agency suggests that to get on a least-cost pathway for 1.5°C, emissions must fall 42 per cent by 2030, compared with 2019 levels, and for 2°C, emissions must fall 28 percent by 2030.

However, Amb. Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators at the just concluded COP29 UN climate conference, cast a long shadow on the current efforts, advocating for proper investments to avoid this scenario.

“If 1.5 can lead to the devastations that we are seeing everywhere, the heat waves, the droughts, the floods, the cyclones, and all this, what is a world of 3.1 going to look like?” he posed.

He was speaking at a meeting hosted by the Kenya Editors Guild themed: Bridging Climate Change and Development for Equitable Progress: Post-Baku Outlook for Kenya.

“And what the scientists have told us is, for us to avoid catastrophic action, or impact, or climate change, we just have a budget, we call it the carbon budget, of just about 200 million gigatons of carbon dioxide.”

According to the UN Emissions Gap Report 2024, looking out to 2035 – the next milestone after 2030 to be included in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) targets – emissions must fall 57 per cent for 1.5°C and 37 per cent for 2°C.

The NDCs represent efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change adopted at the Paris Agreement at the COP21 in 2015 in France. Kenya committed to bear 21 percent, about Sh5.7 trillion of the mitigation costs from domestic sources.

While 79 per cent, an equivalent of Sh21 trillion of this is subject to international support in the form of finance, investment, technology development and transfer, and capacity building.

As greenhouse gas emissions rose to a new high of 57.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023, the cuts required from today are larger; 7.5 per cent must be shaved off emissions every year until 2035 for 1.5°C, the UN says in the emissions gap report.

The world, Amb. Mohamed said has just five years left until the 2030 targets, yet, the global politics is turning more inward-looking as countries embrace nationalism, something he described as incredible.

“And what that means is there is more conservatism, more nationalism, a lot of inward looking, while the issue of climate change and the issues of diversity and others, particularly climate change, requires global cooperation, requires multilateral cooperation,” he noted, emphasising that issues of climate change cannot be solved in a simplistic manner, and termed the findings of the emissions gap report as in reflecting what’s happening in the country.

Early in the year, Kenya experienced devastating floods that left behind a trail of human and animal deaths and destruction of property and plants at a scale never witnessed before. This was after a prolonged drought last year.

“Of course, the report that was just released, just before the COP, indicated that we are on a track towards a 3.1 degrees warming. Because all the actions, or plans, in short, national economic institutions, that all governments and artists in the organization have submitted, even if we succeed in achieving them, which is unlikely, we will still be going towards a 3.1 degrees increase,” he said.

He noted that already the world has warmed up to about 1.5 degrees.

“And yet, that is happening in a global atmosphere that we all share.

“Every year, the pollution level that continues to enter the atmosphere is estimated to be just about 41.6 million gigatons of carbon dioxide. Every single year,” he said.

But today, Amb. Mohamed said 63 per cent of estimated emissions are coming from developing countries, particularly upper-middle-income countries, which are now the biggest emitters.

This is happening as those we previously called developed emissions are significantly reduced because of technological innovations and development and efforts that they’ve been doing over the years.

“The emissions of the world, as you all know, are coming from those who have many generation and production probabilities. Over the past, it has been the developed world, what we call the developed world,” he added.

Current promises are nowhere near these levels, putting us on track for best-case global warming of 2.6°C this century and necessitating future costly and large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to bring down the overshoot.

However, this report shows that it remains at least technically possible to get on a 1.5°C pathway. Increased deployment of solar photovoltaic technologies and wind energy could deliver 27 per cent of the total emission reduction potential in 2030 and 38 per cent in 2035. Action on forests could deliver around 20 percent of the potential in both years. Other strong options include efficiency measures, electrification and fuel switching in the buildings, transport and industry sectors.

All is not lost though going by the words of Dr Peter Odhengo, a Senior Policy Advisor on Climate Finance National Treasury.

“We are mobilising Sh129.3 billion ($1 billion). We already have Sh38.1 billion ($295 million), out of that, we have disbursed Sh14.2 billion ($110 million) to communities in 4,450 wards,” he said during the meeting.

This funding is through the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action (FLLoCA) initiative, a five-year program in Kenya that aims to strengthen the country’s ability to manage climate risks and build resilience to climate change.

Dr Odhengo said so far, the total amount that has been given to the local communities in Kenya stands at Sh1.6 trillion ($12.68 billion) with Bungoma receiving Sh49.1 billion ($380 million), Kakamega (Sh52 billion- $400 million), Kisumu (Sh34 billion- $260 million), Siaya (Sh23 billion- $180 million).
“The minimum that we have given is Sh9 billion ($70 million),” he said, and called on the media to focus on climate financing reporting to raise awareness among Kenyans on adaptation.