Kenya ready to host climate conference

Kenya will host the in-person fifth session of the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) at the UN offices in Nairobi starting next week.

Environment and Forestry Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo said at a media briefing yesterday that over 2,000 delegates have confirmed they will attend.

“The last UNEA was held virtually because of Covid-19 but we are happy to have it in-person and have also considered a hybrid format for virtual attendees to discuss the remaining substantive matters carried forward from the previous session,” he said.

This year’s theme is “Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”. The meeting coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), whose headquarters is in Gigiri, Nairobi.

“We expect high-level leadership dialogues that speak to the strengthening of Unep as well as ministerial declarations under this year’s theme,” said Mr Kiptoo.

Kenya, he said, is determined to implement the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), whose aim is to cut greenhouse gas emissions and come up with climate adaptation measures, an agreement reached in Paris 2015.

The NDCs are usually updated every five years and Kenya is one of the countries that already submitted an update.

Other key issues to be discussed in this year’s UNEA are climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, as well as waste and pollution management.

Mr Kiptoo said that if a waste management bill is passed in Parliament, Kenya will be ahead in terms of waste segregation.

While Kenya already encourages sustainable use of the environment, more needs to be done, said Isaiya Kabira, the director-general of international conferences and public communications at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“We want member states to build back the environment in a better way. We are happy that Kenya is a strong advocate for the environment issues and Climate change is our priority area,” he said yesterday.

Plastic pollution will be among the issues discussed in this year’s meeting.

Sonja Leighton-Kone, the acting Unep deputy executive director, said this year’s UNEA will likely foster a legally binding global agreement on plastic pollution.

“The planet deserves a solution to this scourge that affects us all. We need a meaningful way moving forward so as to protect nature and leverage new ways of protecting the ecosystem,” she said.

“We need to take the state of the environment seriously and we hope that UNEA will have countries come up with policy decisions that will make us have a sustainable planet.

“Countries need to go into an emergency mode and formulate decisions that will help in future.”

Makena Muchiri, permanent representative of the Kenyan Mission to Unep, said that this year’s UNEA is a moment for tackling plastic pollution.

“Just like we had a legally binding agreement in Paris in regards to climate change, we will now set up a negotiating group to put up a mandate on plastic pollution,” she said.

“Already, Kenya, Rwanda and Peru are co-sponsoring the legally binding agreement and we hope it will be considered.”

Kenya will also host other side events related to the environment and climate change, such as coming up with an agreement on a Tree Growing Fund and showcasing the shipping and maritime plastic pollution menace, among others.

The assembly also hopes to push the conversation of turning scientific knowledge into practice.

This year’s UNEA will also set the stage for the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) that will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, later this year.