The point of no return
Over the past couple of years, I
suggest, our environment was much healthier than it is today. Nothing much was not
in order and if it were, it went unnoticed and didn’t merit any local or
international attention whatsoever. Things have changed though, and they have
done it in a drastic manner. The pleasantness of nature is on the verge of
extinction. The moments of today are presenting extraordinary challenges
ranging from a seven billion global population, changing weather patterns-global
warming, increase in deaths from non-communicable diseases, emergence of war revolutions
and the inability to get a lasting solution to these problems by our global
leaders.
My main priority in the series of the
events is global warming. It is the defining issue in our era. It doesn’t require
the knowledge of anybody’s mother to see the current state of the
environment-It is clear and evident like a house set on a mountain top.
Global warming is a fact, not a
theory and it has the potential to reshape our planet for all generations to
come. The catastrophic consequences of unchecked climate change are clear:
severe weather; coastal flooding; drought; ecosystem disruption and deaths due
to heat waves, storms, infectious diseases and pollution.
Just to reminisce, nine of every ten
disasters plaguing the regions and the globe, according to our unsung heroes
whose advice often go unnoticed and unheeded, the meteorologists, are
environmental based. If not a cyclone in Philippines, it is an earthquake in
Haiti; If it is not a drought somewhere in Kenya, it is floods along the plains
of Missisippi river in America; If it is not frost destroying crops in Rift
valley Kenya, it is……It is, the list is endless.
Tragic in our awareness is the terrible
irony of climate change: developing countries have contributed least to the
problem, but bear the brunt of the consequences. Equally tragic is afore
mentioned fact that the world has failed to reach into an amicable solution
regarding this problem.
Trying to bury our heads in the sand
like the proverbial ostrich by refusing to address what ought to be addressed
like global warming is simply stupid. Nature will judge us harshly on this and
soon the nations, especially the major producers and polluters, will be
engulfed in a blame each other cocoon.
This is where we miss the point! We
need to be pragmatic and get everyone around the negotiating table so that
countries with different interests can hammer out an agreement all can embrace.
We need not dwell on the empty philosophical debates of the previous climate
summits held in Cancun, Copenhagen and the recent Durban. We need not!
What we need is an urgent action, a strategic
and a tactical programme that will bring the world into the mainstream of
environmental sustainability as quickly as possible. Without recognizing the
need for an immediate action and commitment into the same, we will be ending up
with solutions that don’t solve, answers that don’t answer and explanations
that do not explain as manifested in the outcome of December, 2010 climate
summit in Cancun and the immediate last year’s Durban Climate Conference in
South Africa.
In the latter two, together with the
Copenhagen meeting of December 2009, crux in the agenda was to create a new
treaty to replace the Kyoto accord (of 1997) which expires this year, 2012. The
Durban conference, in particular, paramount in the topics of the day was to
create a legal binding treaty and a Global Climate Fund.
Paradoxically, no agreeable conclusions were
reached unto albeit the urgency of the matter. Disgustingly, the November 2011
Conference, which to many environmental ailing nations could have been the
source of their future hope in legally binding and compelling the mega economy
countries account and pay for their activities, led into abortive and
inconsiderate conclusions.
The `midwifers` of the highly
anticipated and low media publicized Conference, as likened to a one Kamba
traditional adage, “Threw the baby and retained the placental.”
With this progress, if any, one should
not be condemned or branded as a prophet of doom by asserting that the climate
has gone runaway and we will actually reach the point of no return (+2 degrees Celsius higher average global
temperature) soonest in the foreseeable future as early as 2030s or late 2020s.
Plus-two degree Celsius, above the
comfortable 15 degrees of the average global temperature, is the point of no
return because after that the additional warm triggers natural process that
speed the warming. The permafrost melts and emits enormous amounts of
greenhouse gases. The oceans become much warmer and lose their ability to
absorb carbon dioxide, which, currently is a high profile pollutant and
contributes to climate change no matter where on the surface of the planet is
emitted.
Human health will not either be
spared. Many people will get sick, die or suffer from environmental stresses
begot by environmental degradation. Plants and animals will find it difficult to
adjust to these effects of global warming, and extinction will be inevitable.
Agricultural prospects will nosedive in areas like my own Ukambani, and
flourish in others like the Rift valley.
After these activities, just cutting
human emissions will not stop the warming. I am tempted to ask, “Where will we
go from here?”
In overall, various suggestions have
been, put forward to mitigate, adapt and try to avert the looming disasters. Maybe
we penetrate legislation on conservation and climate on the laws of the land;
maybe we impose tighter environmental restrictions in retrospect to the growing
global investments; maybe, maybe… but none of the proposals has been seriously
adhered. Our Climate Change Authority Act-2012 and the newly established Land
and Environment Court will likely bring transformation.
The clock is ticking and it is ticking
fast. Failure to devote ourselves into addressing these environmental problems
will be a time bomb!
However, in recent ago, am profoundly
impressed and inspired by the new energy the youth have risen with to conserve
the environment. At a time when leaders question the value of dialogue and
progress over the matter, they have in great vigor engaged in environmental
marches, debates, tree-planting exercises, and through social blogging in
creating awareness about our surroundings.
They have hope and ideas for the future
and want to know if their leaders will take steps to end global warming and
preserve the planet - Gods beautiful creation. Their efforts may not make
headlines, but I fervently believe 2012 and the years to come will be good
years for climate change. Wish you a healthy environment! Adieu.
