Mildred Barasa, African Network of Environmental Journalists (Kenya)
Mildred Barasa, since 20 years has covered environmental issues for various Kenyan media such as Kenya Times or the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation, previously she was writing on gender matters. She has been also Information and Communication Expert for the Kenyan government (Ministry of Environment), and ran for parliamentary elections in 20XX. As Secretary General of the African Network of Environmental Journalists (ANEJ), representing 600 journalists from 38 African countries, she puts forward the environmental situation in Kenya and what can be done to improve it.
Despite a fast economic growth (more than 5% yearly since 2010), Kenya's greenhouse gas emissions remain very low, under 0.3 ton per capita each year, when a yearly level of 2.0 ton per capita could be globally sustainable. What can Kenya expect of Paris COP21?
Kenya is indeed a very small emitter of greenhouse gases and has nearly no historical responsibilty in climate change. Developed countries are the ones to blame for climate change. Instead of asking developing countries to reduce their emissions, they should feed the Green Climate Fund created during COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, up to at least 100 billion US dollars, so as to help poor countries to shift to a low carbon economy. Kenya should benefit from the Green Climate Fund. Today, nevertheless its environmental troubles, its education and social needs, the Kenyan economy spends at least 5 billion dollars annually to adapt to climate change. Thus we spend a lot of money in that perspective, most of all to educate the population to climate change and to protect local communities from its food shortage consequences. This action still needs to be developed.
What are the main environmental problems in Kenya today?
