Our Planet with Anthony Mugo

On June 1, 2017, the global community was taken by surprise when the President of the United States Donald Trump announced that the US would pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.  Mr. Trump in his pursuit of the “America First” strategy said that the Agreement puts the United States at a permanent disadvantage and would “undermine the US economy.” It has been noted that the Agreement, which has been signed by 195 countries and the European Union, commits countries which are members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to join together to reduce emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The Agreement also commits rich countries to support developing countries to adapt to climate change and also to carry out climate change mitigation actions that are within their capacities and therefore play their part in helping to maintain the global average temperature at below 2 0 C of where it was before the industrial revolution. Concern ab...

The entire African continent is estimated to be responsible for just about five per cent of carbon dioxide emissions globally. The means that Kenya’s contribution to this amount is less than one per cent and therefore negligible. The question then arises: should developing countries like Kenya worry about climate change mitigation? From an earlier post, climate change mitigation was described as being any effort intended at removing greenhouse gases (GHGs) already in the atmosphere; or reducing the amount of GHGs being released into the atmosphere by sources. The main sources of carbon dioxide, the most significant greenhouse gas, are fossil fuels such as petroleum products and coal. Efforts to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide the ends up in the atmosphere include replacing fossil fuels particularly petroleum products, coal and natural gas with renewable alternatives such as solar, wind, hydro or geothermal. Other measures include construction of “green buildings”, wh...

In one of my recent post, I mentioned experiences of communities that live in Northen Kenya and the kind of struggles they have to go through because of negative impacts of climate change. In this post, I touch on the real life experiences of two wonderful people that I met during my sojourn in Marsabit County, having traversed it using the newly built international standard Isiolo Moyale Highway, which is part of the Cape Town Cairo international corridor. Because of the changing climate, Marsabit County like other Northern Kenya counties is facing serious challenges that are negatively affecting the livelihoods of men, women and even children. A few decades ago, droughts used to occur within cycles of five to ten years. During the intervening period, communities living close to hills were able to grow a wide variety of crops, including maize, beans, millet and potatoes. Unfortunately, drought cycles have become shorter. This has meant that the County does not receive enough ra...