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KENYA: 2a SDG Goals
I believe that the most relevant targets presented by SDG #13 are 13.2 – Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning. It provides a solid base for which countries all over the world will need to involve combatting climate change into all decisions they make, it will fast forwards the process towards the greater goal. 13.3 – Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. Education people if the best way to raise awareness about a particular topic and bring climate change to the attention of people who would’ve otherwise bypassed it. Bringing this into institutions of learning (schools and universtities) as a special lesson or assembly would better peoples knowledge and influence the younger generation to start making changes and fighting global warming.
Target 13.2.1 that helps countries adapt to climate change by introducing it into their policy making, this would help with issues 1,3,5; changes in water/weather, sea level rising and arctic ice melting as these affect the people living in these places and brings hardship to their communities and life especially indigenous people.
Target 13.3.2 allows governments to strengthen capacity balding to implement adaptation which would greatly help communities who are facing problems dur to industrial companies releasing co2 into the atmosphere and who are the mains causes of global warming and climate change. Small indigenous and indigenous communities are being affected and this helps tackle that specific problem.
I believe that the targets should fit a broader range of issues to deal with and how they are going to handle them. Ocean acidification is a major issue that needs to dealt with in order to make earth sustainable for the generations that follow. Ocean acidification is most likely the most pressing issue to do with climate change but many don’t know anything about it; which is why it should be implemented as part of the SDG targets as well as becoming something that needs to be taught in schools because children are the future and will have the biggest impact to these issues.
Summary of issues brought up:
Issue 1: changes in water/weather
Climate change
Observations, local and ecological knowledge corroborate and often out pace scientific studies conducted in the arctic climate change is taking away their privilege to practice a subsistence lifestyle a lifestyle that is essential to the identity and to the integrity of their culture. With each passing year climate change adds to the difficulties of living off the land
Indigenous people are realising that he climate is changing, notice chopping forests to plant soya and sugarcane, burning trees, which is poisonous making people ill. Non-indigenous people don’t understand the change the clime changing is affecting them. An urgent solution is needed.
Issue 2: ocean acidification
When carbon dioxide is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater pH which makes it acidic. This is called ocean acidification. Estimates indicate that by the end of this century the surface waters of the ocean could be 150% more acidic, resulting in a pH the oceans haven’t experience in more than 20million years. Sustained efforts are only beginning, it’s impossible to predict how ocean acidification will affect the food chain and the overall structure of the marine eco-system but it WILL have an effect and something needs to be done.
Issue 3: sea level rise
New York: has experienced a foot of sea-level rise since 1900; mostly due to expansion of warming ocean water. Coastal counties are home to more than half of New Yorkers. By 2100 scientists predict sea levels 18-50 inches higher than it is now. Sea levels rising is going to happen for centuries maybe even millennia. Energy, land use and infrastructure decisions made now will determine how vulnerable our children and grandchildren will be to rising sea-levels.
Florida: many residents are struggling to make ends meet even when holding up multiple jobs; they are more focused of affordable housing, jobs, transportation and safety rather than climate change (it’s the last thing on their mind.
Issue 4: Freshwater Availability
Refugees are fleeing form the middleeast to Europe to eupore to flee wars but very soon there could be a new class of refugee called climate refugees who are fleeing in search of food and water because there is an absence of it where they come from. Fresh wter as well as food is a fleeting recouse due to climate change as places where crops used to grow are unfertile and cannot harbour water of life therefore the people who live there will need to more fertile areas where food and grow and water is.
Issue 5: Melting Arctic Sea Ice
September 2012 had the lowest sea ice extent ever recorded; 44% below the 1981- 2010 average for the month. Sea ice is an integral part of the Arctic Ocean. During the dark winter months, sea ice essentially covers the entire Arctic Ocean. In summer, some of this ice melts because of warmer temperatures and long hours of sunlight. Sea ice typically reaches its minimum thickness and extent in mid-September, when the area covered by ice is roughly half the size of the winter maximum.
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1 Comment(s)
Hi Yasmin,
Thank you for your post, you are very thorough. I would like to encourage you to keep zooming in and zooming out, that is looking at the global picture and at the local one. All of the issues you look at are more on a global scale - what about in Kenya? Is there concept of indigenous and non-indigenous? If so, how do the two relate - and how does the change in climate and decrease affected relations? If there isn't, what do these issues mean for Kenya?
Lebogang Disele
Oct 12, 2017