Don’t use us to rubber stamp bill to appease delegates at summit, senators tell Tuya

Senators on Wednesday accused Environment CS Soipan Tuya of rushing them to passage a bill because of the upcoming African Climate Summit.

It emerged the Executive is pushing the Senate to approve the Climate Change (Amendment)Bill 2023 by Thursday ahead of the summit that begins on Monday.

“You have been in office for one year and you knew that the African Summit for Climate Change was coming. Why didn’t you bring these amendments early so that we have enough time to look at the Bill?” Baringo Senator William Cheptumo posed.

“It looks like you want us to pass the law because of climate change summit,” he added.

Tuya appeared before the Senate Lands and Environment committee to give her views on the government Bill sponsored by Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot.

The Bill amends the Climate Change Act of 2016 to provide for the regulation of carbon markets, which is not addressed in the current Act.

The Bill was introduced in the Senate for First Reading during the special sitting on Tuesday after it was passed by the National Assembly.

Speaker Amason Kingi immediately committed it to the House Land and Environment committee for public participation within a day— Wednesday— and table a report on Thursday in yet another special sitting.

The senators are expected to approve in the marathon special siting that begins at 9.30am. President William Ruto is expected to sign it into law on Friday.

Taita Taveta Senator Johannes Mwaruma questioned why such an important law would take that long before being brought to Parliament for passage.

The senator said they had hardly understood the contents of the Bill, adding that proper public participation ought to have been conducted on the subject matter.

“Why has this law taken so long before being brought here? Proper public participation requires that we look at the matrix and regulating carbon credit.”

“We needed to involve as many stakeholders as possible. I will be worried to pass the law in four days,” Mwaruma said.

In her response, Tuya told the Nyandarua Senator John Methu-led committee that her ministry was not pushing for the passage of the law because of the summit.

However, she maintained that the passage of the Bill will profile the country highly in terms of climate action.

“We are not passing the law because of the summit [but] with the passage of this law, Kenya will be at the top,” she said.

“Kenya will be profiled highly for taking its responsibility for climate change action. What we are requesting is the passage of the framework. We will embark on regulations,” Tuya added.

The CS said she found a backlog of legal proposal on her table, some dating back to 15 yeas ago, that she has been fighting to push their passage and implementation.

Yesterday, the committee was in a rush to piece together a report to be tabled in the House this morning and subsequently a debate.

The Senate only gave stakeholders hours to submit a written memorandum on their views about the Bill

This is despite the Senate Standing Orders 148 (1) that requires the committee to submit its report with 30 calendar days of the committal of the Bill to the committee, which is September 27, 2023.

The Bill provides a legal framework for the regulation of carbon markets.

Carbon market means the mechanism that enables and allows public and private entities to transfer and transact emission reduction units, mitigation outcomes or offsets generated through carbon initiatives, programmes and projects subject to compliance of national and international law.

The Bill seeks to introduce carbon trading which supports the country to comply with the Paris Agreement that Kenya ratified and became a party to on December 28, 2016.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement encourages parties to raise their mitigation ambition through carbon markets and non-market approaches.

If passed by the Senate and assented to by the President, the law will support climate change interventions by enabling Kenya to achieve her Nationally Determined Contributions in line with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

Kenya submitted her updated NDC in 2020 whose ambition is to reduce greenhouse gases by 32 per cent relative to business as-usual scenario of 143 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030.