Kenya:My Ecological Footprint

Environment   Sep 16, 2017 by Mohamed

Our continent, Africa is a disadvantaged continent with millions living in conditions of poverty and not getting their basic rights; food, shelter and clothing. In such conditions climate change is at the bottom of the agenda with issues like poverty, corruption and war overshadowing it. This isn’t to say that governments and ministries of environment aren’t working to reverse the effects of climate change. Here in Kenya, it poses a challenging threat to social, environmental and economic growth. This is because of the major drivers of the economy being climate-sensitive, (Agriculture, fisheries, forestry, tourism). On top of this the country has a low adaptive capacity to climate change showing how susceptible countries like Kenya are.

When I tried the Climate challenge I didn’t expect anything too hard but to my surprise it was. The policies in the simulation were tough to choose and evenly made in terms of its negative and positive impact. It was difficult keeping everyone including the international leaders happy with the policies I chose and required well thought out decisions. In my decision making, my number one priority was to reduce my CO₂ emissions and make it hard for anyone to pollute. Raising carbon taxes was effective but its approval was very low and many people didn’t like it. Other policies like importing solar power technology were expensive and was seen as another way of misusing our resources although it reduced emissions. Policies like building affordable housing (Not environmentally friendly) made my approval rise while policies like ensuring building regulations were improved seemed unpopular (Environmentally friendly). Which meant that even if the policy I chose led to my carbon emissions decreasing, it wasn’t good enough to the public as I made life harder for them and disrupted their daily activities. Nonetheless, my policies were successful in ensuring carbon emissions dropped down.

The policy cards were very toughly written out and was hard to decide which was the better alternative. This forced me to focus on many areas and not solely on my carbon emissions as is the case in reality. Some of the policies I feel could have had better responses from the public. Resources were evenly scattered and reflected accurately how it would play out in reality. When it came to International negotiation, I had only one choice. To lead by example. Funding any other nations’ environmental project didn’t get me their vote, but seeing Europe’s carbon emissions declining sent a message to them to follow the footsteps. And within a few sessions, I had everyone on my side until eventually the game was over.The problem seemed to come when my unpopular policies that tackled climate change were threatening my position in the polls and seemed very hard to keep my position often times dropping below 50%. These led me to believe that leaders around the world faced the same problem and I could now finally understand why it was tough for them to implement policies like this.

The water footprint calculator, brought to my attention how much water I was using annually. On average, I used 250 gallons of water a day! This surprised me and I wouldn’t believe it. With this I decided to investigate the source of this water. The amount of water I used mainly comprised of flushing and showering, using almost 80 gallons of water to shower. the worlds average is 4,000,000,000,000,000 litres and Kenya's is 15,800,000 litres a year that puts me at 0.5% of the annual average. Showing me the true damage that I was causing. This may be because many own farms and small plots of land that is used for agricultural purposes.

Most of the water used can be reduced and especially consumption like mine. Every aspect can be reduced if the right measures are taken. Smarter use of water and finding better ways of measuring and awareness of the water we use daily. Rainwater can be purified and used in different remote and needing regions and to reduce our own footprint. There is no part of my water consumption or anyone else’s that can’t be reduced through efficient means.

In my community, I have virtually the same lifestyle as everyone else in the community and it’s fair to say that their results will be like mine. This is concerning as it a lot of water being used up incompetently. Thus, millions of litres of water go to waste.

This helps me tackle Climate change by starting within myself and leading by example for others to follow the footsteps. It has also taught me to see climate change in a different way and it doesn’t hurt to know that you are destroying the environment and your planet and that you should change your ways and help others in your community see the true damage they are causing. By switching to environmentally friendly methods of going about your daily life without compromising anything, you help everyone, but mostly your planet and yourself.

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