According to the United Nations (UN), Climate Change refers to the long-term changes in temperature and weather patterns. These changes may be organic, but since the 1800s, human activity has been the primary cause of climate change.
The problem
This is mainly from burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and gas, which release gases into the atmosphere, trapping heat and causing an increase in earth temperatures globally.
The UN estimates that if serious action is not taken, climate change might push another 100 million people into poverty by 2030.
Kenya is not exempted from the effects of the changes that are being felt practically everywhere in the world, which are the reasons driving the need to adapt to climate change.
Even if the effects of climate change are severe and catastrophic, adapting to them will undoubtedly save lives.
Young participants from undeveloped countries may believe that climate change is a battle for the industrialized nations, despite the fact that many young people, just like the old, are apparently suffering from nutritional diseases and people and animals in most semi-arid areas are starving to death.
This is not only because their country is still developing. It’s certainly a wake-up call, a step toward gaining clarity and restructuring the government to fund and establish policies regarding what we can do as a country to join the international movement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main cause of global warming.
Repercussions
One of the biggest hunger crises ever recorded in Kenya occurred last year, with the National Drought Management Authority of Kenya (NDMA) claiming that about 4.35 million Kenyans urgently needed food assistance.
The food security of Kenyans is deteriorating over time, and an increasing number of people are being endangered.
When the citizens were on the verge of dying of hunger, many players generously entered the game to help. But how long will we continue to do this? How much longer will we continue to use emergency funds to preserve lives?
Our duty
Given that food is a basic requirement in and of itself, it is time to start creating a life and to begin planning for long-term means of achieving consistent food security.
The NDMA issued an early drought warning bulletin, warning that the late start to rainfall in almost all 2022 rain seasons could turn the roughly four previous poor rain seasons to shatter records.
It is now important for us to work together to secure enough food to lessen the effects of climate change.
The process of adapting to climate change involves being ready for and making changes in response to its anticipated future effects.
Due to the ongoing effects of global warming, including rising sea temperatures, heatwaves, droughts, floods, and coastal erosion that affect generations after generations, the world is attempting to reduce the rising production of greenhouse gases up to zero by 2050.
Why adapt?
Extreme weather events happening more frequently, such as a glaring absence of rainfall for four seasons in most parts of Kenya throughout 2022, are just the beginning of progressive climate change.
Extreme weather and climate phenomena, such as Lake Victoria’s water levels abruptly rising and resulting in floods and displaced people, are only precursors to what would occur on a worse level if global warming persists up to 2050.
The impacts on urban and rural life, changing food prices, and even social and economic systems, are enormous.
Extreme poverty and a lack of food are so obvious in Kenya that the current administration has resolved to lift the age-old ban against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) foods to address the food problem amid controversy.
Dr. William Ruto, President of Kenya, defended himself by pointing out that other African nations, including South Africa and the United States, do not forbid the use of genetic engineering.
He argued that it is time for the ban to be lifted to increase food crop production to address the ongoing hunger crisis.
However, many social groups have spoken out against the decision and demanded that the program be abandoned because it poses more risk and harm. Many citizens expressed their opinions, despite the president’s own clarification that he cannot jeopardize the lives of Kenyans who elected him.
On January 4, 2023, he noted that “GMOs are safe, according to all the scientists I spoke with in Kenya. The US and all of South Africa are entirely GMO. Have you heard of any issues? I’ve consumed GMO food; have I developed breasts?”
However, despite the substantial improvement, more is needed to end the food problem in Kenya.
Way forward
It’s time to implement long-term programs to adapt to this ongoing climate change, such as building dams and increasing irrigation, which would directly improve agricultural output.
Although climate change is the greatest environmental threat of all time, other factors are also at play, including the changing ecosystems, human expansion, health, the coastal environment, and marine life. Kenya’s prosperity is in jeopardy if its population doesn’t have a good life.
The goal of combating climate change, according to the Global Citizen Report, is to provide justice to the world’s developing nations.
Even though the 50 least-developed countries have produced only 1% of greenhouse gas emissions, research indicates that the same developing countries will experience 99% of the casualties linked to climate change.
This includes countries like Kenya.
2023 marks seven years to the global vision we set for 2030—the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—where, as a country, we were required to address the majority of environmental problems, including climate change.
Although the problems are a worldwide issue, developing countries bear the brunt of their effects. All of us will feel the effects.
We would all be liberated from the risks and future life complications as well as erasing poverty if we joined the global movement, worked together to address the effects of climate change, and moved toward a green economy.
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Climate change adaptation is not only a fight for highly developed nations but a call to humanity and a necessity for redemption on earth.
Together, as Kenyan youth, activists, environmental champions, policy developers and everybody who truly cares for what the future holds, we better rise up and create a better planet for future generations.
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