•The Governor pointed out that 44 counties have established County Climate Change Funds through enacting requisite climate change legislation,
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County governments have set aside Sh 877 million for climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives.
Council of Governors Chair, Anne Waiguru states county governments have been undertaking various initiatives dealing with mitigation and adaptation and have put in place bills to enable them to allocate between 1-3 per cent of their development budgets.
She revealed that lack of adequate funding has remained a major constraint to the implementation of climate change interventions by the devolved units.
“Climate change is real as evidenced through an increase in frequency and severity of disasters such as droughts, floods, landslides and influx of diseases and pests,” Waiguru noted.
She was speaking while addressing participants at KUSI Ideas Festival held at Karura Forest.
Waiguru who doubles as Kirinyaga Governor said there is a need to strengthen reporting for climate change expenditure and also called for timely disbursement of funds from the National Treasury.
“In light of all interventions adopted by County Governments to confront climate change, it is evident that counties are constrained in terms of the financial and human capacity to address the overwhelming challenges of climate change,” she said.
The Governor pointed out that 44 counties have established County Climate Change Funds by enacting requisite climate change legislation. 45 have already established Climate Change Units, while 30 of them have set up ward climate change planning committees.
Waiguru emphasized that there is a need to follow through with the COP27 discussions on the operationalization of the financing instrument to support loss and damage accruing from climate change impacts to countries worst hit by Climate Change, as well as provision of improved funding for the implementation of gender action plans for developing countries.
She called upon partners to collaborate with County Governments to make Kenya's mitigation and adaptation goals a reality.
The governor said that devolved governments are on the front line in the implementation of the critical function of environment, climate change, natural resources management as well as forestry, soil and water conservation and have put in place various mechanisms to support the same.
“In addition, the extraordinary and interrelated crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation and desertification, ocean degradation and pollution continue to negatively impact our communities," Waiguru noted.
The Kirinyaga governor said that there is a gap in gender responsiveness to climate finance which should strengthen the capacity of women and further the work under the gender action plan in order to facilitate access to climate finance for vulnerable groups including indigenous peoples and local communities.
She noted that there was an urgent need for post COP 27 road map of action to cascade the discussions and outcomes of the COP to County Governments and Communities, as well as the development of a framework to regulate the carbon trade and ensure communities who are in the front line of conservation benefit from the proceeds of carbon credit should be developed.
The CoG chair also called for collaboration between both levels of Government and stakeholders in accelerating the restoration of Forests and Rangelands in line with the Special Presidential Programme.
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