Ruto’s Enormous Contribution To The Phasing Out Of Fossil Fuels Finally Borne The Fruits
The Mt Kenya Times 
President William Ruto
By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga
Worth Noting:
- President William Ruto was one of the world leaders chosen to speak for Africa.
- In his keynote address, he minced no word in challenging the leaders of global north to reconsider and drop their earlier positions.
- We are here to again explore ways of saving humanity and mankind. Your people are suffering the same way Africa continent is suffering.
- With this, Dr Ruto had set the ball rolling. Besides rooting for phasing out of the fossil fuels, he challenged the global north to honor their pledges. We want you to now honor the monetary pledges you had made in previous COP conferences to support the adaption and climate change mitigation measures.
I was following closely the deliberations at the just concluded 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) held in Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE).
The delegates from around 200 countries were upbeat when the final resolutions were read by the COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
This is because the phasing out of fossil fuels-oil, gas and coal-was one of its key highlights.
They considered this as a major breakthrough.
In the previous COP conferences, the deliberations around this issue caused sharp divisions and always ended in disarray.
Pitting the Global North and Global South, the latter comprising the powerful high income nations of West, East and Asia would mount a stiff opposition.
Taking cognizant of the fact they relied heavily on fossil fuels to build their economies, they would always downplay the impact of their contribution to climate change. They were the biggest polluters.
The researchers conducted by scientist and environmentalists showed the fossil fuels contributed 80 percent of the world’s bad non-renewable energy.
Seemingly, in Dubai, the heads state and government of Global North came to their senses.
The disastrous effect of climate was ravaging the whole world. Their respective citizens were also bearing the brunt.
COP28 resolved that the transition to clean renewable energy seeks to reduce the world heat to 1.5C.
President William Ruto was one of the world leaders chosen to speak for Africa.
In his keynote address, he minced no word in challenging the leaders of global north to reconsider and drop their earlier positions.
We are here to again explore ways of saving humanity and mankind. Your people are suffering the same way Africa continent is suffering.
With this, Dr Ruto had set the ball rolling. Besides rooting for phasing out of the fossil fuels, he challenged the global north to honor their pledges. We want you to now honor the monetary pledges you had made in previous COP conferences to support the adaption and climate change mitigation measures.
In Dubai, this issue was not conclusively resolved.
Reacting to President Ruto’s call, the Global North noted. This time, we are going to honor our promises.
During deliberations in Dubai, one of the mainstream newspaper here in Kenya sought to cast President William Ruto in bad light by creating the impression that Kenya is topping the list of the countries with largest number of the delegates.
While ranking Kenya on 13th position with 765 delegates , the authors cited the registration forms and badges issued.
They wanted Kenyans to believe that the government of Kenya has sponsored all them.
For this reason, President Ruto was not walking the talk.
He had a few days earlier unveiled a raft of austerity measures.
One of them was to cut down budgetary allocations for the essential foreign trips.
But as it turned out, the state was only catering for the bills of 51 of them. These were essential staff across the government, who companied the President, and they were not joyriders.
Each had specific duties to undertake assigned to them by the head of state.
The expenses of the rest of delegates were catered by the local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private sector.
It is worth noting that two lists of the state officers who would accompany the President had earlier been submitted to him.
One of them contained 189 officials. He rejected it on ground the number was too large. The number was reduced to 144. He also rejected it. He finally settled on 51 officers.
This clearly demonstrated that the President believed in austerity measures he had unveiled.
In Dubai, President Ruto once again scored highly. He managed to secure green deals worth Sh680 billions. The monies will be invested in projects meant to actualize the theme of United Arab Emirate’s Clean Energy Pipeline. Kenya is set to become the pioneer of Africa Green Industrialization Initiative (AGII).
In one of the sessions before President Ruto arrived, the world leaders led by Bill Gates, UK Foreign Affairs Minster Cameron and President of Tanzania Madam Suluhu Hassan showered him with accolades.
The President of Kenya is showing us the way. We have learnt big lessons from him on how to mitigate climate change.
A few months earlier Dr Ruto had convened an inaugural Africa Climate Change summit in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city.
This forum endorsed and adopted a raft of resolutions. Dubbed the Nairobi declaration, President Ruto led African leaders in reaching a consensus to push for the adoption of the blueprint during the forthcoming COP28.
At the time, Dr Ruto stated. The declaration outlines the position of Africa. We will not allow the powerful nations to water it down. We will stand firm. In Dubai, he walked the talk.
Kenya is one of the countries that have been hit hard by adverse effects of climate change.
First, it was the drought rated to be the worst in 40 years. Dr Ruto had no option but to channel all public resources towards battling the biting hunger.
COP28 was held at a timr when the country was experiencing El nino phenomena. The situation could have been worse if the government did not respond with speed.
Deputy President Gachagua had been coordinating multi-sectoral disaster response teams.
In one of the emergency meetings with the teams, DP noted. Our efforts are bearing the fruits. We have saved the lives of many Kenyans and secured their properties. Keep it up. If you can do more, please do. We must save the lives of our people, he reiterated.
It is worth noting that President William Ruto is not only a leading champion of matters climate change in Africa. He has lately emerged as a global leader.
Before Nairobi climate summit, African heads of state and government gathered at Africa Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa Ethiopia during which they adopted the proposal by Dr Ruto on Africa to take a proactive role in these endeavors.
This explains why the Africa Union (AU) secretariat on Climate change chose Nairobi to host the inaugural summit.
Besides dozens of heads of state from Africa, the representatives of the global leaders, renowned environmentalists and scholars are in attendance.
It is worth noting the summit comes against the backdrop of the dozens of international Conferences dubbed conference of Parties (COPs).
The world’s leading players of air pollution would make big commitments but would not keep thier words.
Just like in Dubai, President Ruto would not take this matter lightly. He once stated. The meetings are not adding any value to the course of environmental conservation. This is by reversing the devastating effects of climate change.
The forums have become empty talk shows. What is the point of holding them if we don’t implement the resolutions?
Climate change is a global problem.
So, he would urge the leaders of rich countries to reconsider their position and take this matter seriously.
In Kenya, President Ruto has since launched a series of programmes for mitigation.
One of them is dubbed greening Kenya that seeks to ensure 15 billion trees are planted by the year 2030.
The President kicked off this campaign at Ngong Forest. Recently, he led the nation in planting trees in Makueni during which 150 million seedlings were planted across the country. The day had been declared a public holiday.
The President is also providing leadership towards phasing out of fossil fuel powered vehicular and industrial machines.
They would be replaced by electric cars. As a show of commitment, the President drove an electric car to Kenyatta International Convention Center (KICC).
He had gone there to meet Africa Youth On Africa Climate Change a day before he officially opened the summit.
The fossil fuel produces the following petroleum products-jet fuel, petrol, diesel, kerosene, liquified petroleum gas (LPG).
Solar, wind, water, biogas are some of the sources of clean renewable energy. The president has also been calling on Kenyans to shift and embrace them.
In Kenya, the problems related to climate change were: Biting drought, famine, mudslides, landslides, rising and overflowing of lake/dams waters and locust invasion.
As an observer, my message to Africa leaders is.
A time has come for Africa to rise up to the occasion. What do I mean? Africa leaders should explore ways of raising their own resources that would go along way in mitigating the effects of climate change.
This way, the superpowers will stop demeaning and looking down the people of Africa.
Here the message will be clear. It does not mean that Africa cannot survive. You need us and we need to you. So, if you think you are more superior and continue to treat us with utter disrespect, we can chart our own destiny.
You are main the players in air pollution and climate change. We are not therefore begging you when we tell you to honor your promises.
Joseph Mutua Ndonga is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi
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