THE POINT OF NO RETURN

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.