COP26 - A View from Kenya

Guest Blog
Written By Guest Blog Author

We asked Kevin Mtai if he would consider writing a short guest blog for us. He is Africa co-ordinator for Earth Uprising, a Member of Global Children’s Campaign, Organiser at Climate Live and co-founder of Kenya Environmental Action Network (KEAN).

We asked him to tell us a bit about how COP26 was looking to him, what were the key outcomes that he was hoping for from the conference, and how it tied into his current work in Africa on plastic pollution and biodiversity. We are very grateful to Kevin Mtai for recording these views for us:

“Being a Kenyan climate activist means more to me personally than just activism. From school children missing out on classes to go looking for water, to farmers desperately trying to chase out locusts that are invading farms yet again as I write this, to floods and extreme droughts. Our lakes are rising, drowning islands and yes climate refugees are not a thing we are anticipating, we live with them, we have in our midst, women who left all they had with their children, on a hand made boat and paddled crocodile infested waters to safety. Our proximity to the equator has meant that we are one of the most affected when it comes to climate change and yet we remain the least contributors of carbon emissions.

As we zoom further out, we note that there are various issues that play into the climate breakdown. It is the farmer in rural Kenya with a small acre of land that will not harvest his maize, he won't have enough for medicine should his family fall ill or pay for his child's uniform. It's more than climate breakdown, its the breaking down of our communities and what they live for. It's eroding our very way of life. As we move on further up, we will note that climate issues barely make it to the main local news, save for a small mention in a middle of the page newspaper at the corner. Forgotten and blatant erasure, from the news, from peoples minds back to the rural corner of where the farmer and his misery belong. And yet the most the farmer will contribute to carbon emission is a ride to the main town, perhaps to buy medicine and even that on public transport. As an activist I have long campaigned for climate and social justice, and yet, as a person of color I struggle to have my voice heard, to have a platform and at times to even speak out for fear of not being of the right demograph.

For the past few months I have been campaigning for #AfricaisNotaDumpster, this came after the US's ambitious plan for oil as the prices plummeted. Their plan - to bring back the plastic bag that we so effectively banned with the promise to set up manufacturing plants that they themselves have failed to do. A problem they intend to transfer to us using Kenya as the gateway to Africa and yet we still grapple with single plastics and plastic bottles. Plastics is a massive problem in my country with the poor population again facing the brunt of it all. Our slums are dumped with plastic waste, our river choke with plastic bottles and land fills are full of children who should be in school, looking for bottles to sell for recycling in the midst of burning waste that is full of methane and toxic gases. Again another issue that is dumped upon as by the mighty west and it will only get.

Cop 26 is looming now, and we as encouraging as it is to see big names and the great US join the Paris Agreement, my question is are we doing enough? What are we going to do that will mitigate these awful living conditions? what are we doing to ensure that countries like mine won't be the dumping grounds for plastic? Will there really be an end to fossil fuels and investments in them. Will we as Africans have more representation in Conservation?”

Guest Blog Author
Previous

An Interview with Dr Daisy Thomas
Next

Engineering for the Energy Transition - An Online Event