Our Planet with Anthony Mugo

Any action taken in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) constitutes climate change mitigation. One might however ask: What can we do as individuals and at the household level in order to reduce the emission of GHGs? The answer and the action that can be taken are surprisingly simple. For example, the mere act of replacing a conventional electric bulb with an energy saving substitute amounts to a big contribution towards mitigation. It does not only reduce emissions but also significantly saves energy and by extension the cost of lighting homes. Consider this: although an energy saving bulb might cost three times the cost of an ordinary incandescent bulb, it lasts 10 times longer on average. With regard to mitigation against climate change the energy saving bulb has been found to help to prevent 100 kilogrammes of CO 2 per year over its working life of approximately 10,000 hours. In order to increase the benefits of clean energy even further, government...

Climate change adaptation, which involves taking measures to cope with impacts of climate change, requires that new ways of producing food be devised in order to enable communities to sustain their livelihoods and achieve food security. Climate change, which is the observed change in the climate of a place over a period of at least 30 years and whose evidence can be determined from records such as average temperature or rainfall of a place, results in either new challenges for producing food or in some cases opportunities. In many countries which include Kenya, scientists predict that rainfall patterns will change and seasons will become less predictable because of climate change. This then means farmers will need to get accurate information about the amount, distribution and the duration of rains that are expected to be available during every growing season. In other words, farmers will need to practice what is now referred to as climate-smart agriculture. According to the Food...

As I noted in an earlier post, taking measures to cope with climate change is what is referred to as climate change adaptation. Adaptation measures are necessary in order to enable communities to deal with the negative impacts of climate change and to take advantage of opportunities that might result from it. For example, climate change is expected to result in increased rainfall in some areas. This could mean that there is a better ability for such areas to produce food hence increasing communities’ food security. Other areas are expected to become drier and hotter, meaning that water scarcity could become the norm. One important and effective climate change adaptation measure is water harvesting. In many countries including Kenya, climate change is expected to lead to more frequent and severe extreme events such as droughts and floods. It is common for communities affected negatively by drought in one year to also suffer from floods the following year and in the proce...

Experts agree that whatever is done towards efforts to reduce the accumulation of green-house gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere that has already occurred will not be reversible in the next 50 to 100 years unless an effective way is found to cool the earth. Current changes in the earth’s climate will therefore remain for the foreseeable future. It is the opinion of climate scientists that human activities that followed the beginning of the industrial age around 1900 are responsible for the change in the earth’s average temperature over the course of the last 100 years. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the global authority on the subject, has confirmed the role of human activity in contributing to current observed climate change. “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the human activities that have resulted in the increase in GHGs concentrations,” note...