Climate change: Take concrete steps to address global warming
With humans and climate change exerting pressure on land, governments globally are stepping up efforts to assess the impacts and potential future risks, while instituting possible response options.
Last week, governments approved the Summary for Policymakers of the Special Report on Climate Change and Land in Geneva, Switzerland.
The report was prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global body responsible for assessing the state of scientific knowledge related to climate change.
The report will be a key scientific input into forthcoming climate and environmental negotiations, such as the Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (COP 14) in New Delhi India next month and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (COP 25) in Santiago, Chile in December.
Keeping global warming below 2°C can be achieved only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors.
The IPCC’s first ever comprehensive look at the whole land-climate system received contributions from experts and governments, with a majority of the authors from developing countries, including Kenya.
The report shows that better land management can contribute to tackling climate change and reducing global warming from all sectors is essential if global warming is to be kept below 2°C, if not 1.5°C.
Forests and climate change are intrinsically linked. Forest loss and degradation is both a cause and an effect of climate change. Agriculture, forestry and land-use sectors account for about a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions and are the largest sources after cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships combined.
Reducing forest loss can reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change, with multiple benefits for ecosystems and people. Trees have emerged as one of the most popular weapons against global warming.
Many governments have advanced plans to plant vast numbers of trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in an attempt to slow climate change.
The Kenyan government has initiated such plans, but it is well off the pace in its attempts to increase the national forest cover, compared to other countries.
Ethiopia, in an ambitious drive to counter the effects of deforestation and climate change spearheaded by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on July 29, planted more than 350 million trees, setting a new world record. The trees were planted in 12 hours, breaking the world record of 50 million trees held by India since 2016.
As the host of UN Environment, Kenya should take its tree-planting programmes more seriously if we are to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Forests are vital storehouses of carbon. However, when forests are cleared to make way for agriculture and other activities, they emit large quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Standing forests address the impact of climate change. They absorb greenhouse gases, regulate water flows and protect coastal communities from extreme climate events and the rise of sea levels. —[email protected]
