|
|
Kenya: Reality of Climate Change is Dawning On Country
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Business Daily (Nairobi)
OPINION
29 April 2008
Posted to the web 29 April 2008
David Mataen
"Climate change is top of mind for many executives. Media attention is high, political discussions are intense, valuations for clean-technology companies have increased considerably, and the corporate carbon footprint has become an important topic among senior managers," read an article in The McKinsey Quarterly recently.
Among global mega-trends climate change has worked its way to the top. The International Framework Convention on Climate Change (IFCCC) sponsored the Kyoto Protocol that almost, if for US regressiveness, became the first universal agreement on anything. Climate change is worrying, it is alarming, and it is urgent. As citizens of the world we need to act and act now to save the world from mankind's compulsive destructive tendencies.
Back here what have we done about it? Let's take stock. I don't know about you, but I hear deafening silence, an eerie gnawing quiet.
That is if you tune out the occasional lone and plaintive cries of Wangari who most of our political class would really wish she could shut up. We tell ourselves that nothing is the matter, and go about life in ignominious bliss.
We say that we do not have the toxic heavy industries of China nor the permanently snaking columns of gas-guzzling automobiles of San Francisco.
My view is we stand on precarious, fast shifting quicksands. And if we do not act fast, and act collectively we may be staring great parallels of frightening. Lets look at it from a commercial sense. Climate change is and has become a very real and expensive cost of conducting business right here in Kenya.
Near depletion of the water catchments areas has rendered rainfall erratic; silting up of the water dams has made reservoir and turbines management expensive and reduced their capacity to hold water.
The result is a very costly energy regime and escalating power costs.
Just last week we were awakened to a sombre prospect that our electricity bills could be reading 60 per cent more by June.
In a situation as we find ourselves where alternative energy is not a feasible nor ready option, we have no option but to swallow the bitter pill.
On the other hand power consumption per capita is sky-rocketing. For an apt illustration, when I first came to Nairobi not a single building had air-conditioning. Now those without are the exception. For nine months in a calendar year, outdoor motors suspended outside of windows are humming and whining endlessly.
For industrial and manufacturing concerns power costs have already become a barrier to doing business. Very soon our cement manufacturers will have to seriously consider locating out of Kenya if they are to remain competitive in the region. Egyptian and Far Eastern manufacturers are taking them out purely on the strength of much lower energy costs in their economies.
At this rate, there are myriad industries essential to economic growth we might never have because of our extremely high unit costs of power: a serious steel industry for one.
Modern industrialisation is directly correlated to energy availability; no economy can prosper without an abundant supply of energy. It is however inversely correlated with its costs; no economy can prosper either on a high and deteriorating power cost base.
How about the national sanitation situation? How many estates in Nairobi have constant running water? How many new ones are subtracting from the list every year?
Will it only become critical when the taps in Serena Nairobi or State house run dry? Did you know that one of the reasons our coffee isn't branded is because we haven't got enough water to clean it to international standards?
Those of us who think that protecting, even reclaiming, the environment is doing Prof Wangari a favour, think again.
|
Mataen is Corporate Finance director, Faida Investment Bank.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Business Daily. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
