The impacts and costs of climate change must, be addressed through coherent and effective climate change governance. However, available evidence suggests that environmental and climate change relevant policy in Kenya remains mostly incoherent and not integrated with longterm national development plans and policies.
Drought-induced reduction in hydropower generation has become a persistent feature in the region’s electricity generation. Expanding decentralized renewable energies for electricity generation provides an important and cost-effective measure of adapation to climate change.
The idea of growth as the way to end poverty and escape economic and financial crisis remains largely undisputed and is currently reflected in the concept of the green economy. But not everything that is “green” and efficient is also environmentally sustainable and socially equitable. This essay outlines a policy of less, of wealth in moderation, to enable the Earth’s resources to make a life of dignity and without need possible for all.
The policy brief discusses the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM’s) role in the UNFCCC climate governance architecture, and highlights the evolution of the mechanism. On Kenya it assesses institutions, actors, and the CDM’s implementation in the currently most important energy and forestry sectors, and the broader domestic project pipeline, considering public policy and governance dimensions.
In this essay, the President of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Barbara Unmuessig, critically reflects on the opportunities for and the shortcomings of the concept of a "Green Economy" to influence economic policy making globally, its relationship to the paradigm of sustainable development and the need to rethink our understanding and focus on growth.
