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{
    "id": 1279761,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1279761/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 206,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nakuru Town East, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. David Gikaria",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "to come into the country and invest in carbon market trading. The percentages have been alluded to, for land-based carbon credit markets, there is a proposal of 40 per cent, and for non- land, it is at 25 per cent. That proposal is attractive to investors to come and invest in the carbon market trading. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I want to echo what the Leader of the Majority Party has said about the nomination of members of the National Climate Change Council. Currently, we have two cases pending before the Court of Appeal and before the High Court. Since 2016, we have not operationalised the Climate Change Council. That is sad. In picking members to the council, you allow the largest organisation to bring a nominee. They are like two of them. If you pick from one, the other organisation goes to court and stops the process. This amendment Bill seeks to address that problem. It gives the appointing authority to the President of the Republic of Kenya, who will nominate a person from either of the organisations for appointment to the Council. Again, this will fasten the process. We will not have different organisations related to climate change matters going to court to stop the appointment of a member to the council. We still have a case pending at the Court of Appeal about the nominees of 2016. After going through at difficult process of vetting, the two bodies are locked in a legal dispute to- date. This amendment Bill seeks to give the appointing authority leeway to pick a nominee from an organisation related to climate change and carbon credit, and the Kenya Association of Manufacturers. He can pick people from there. As a Committee, we have also agreed to increase the representation of the private sector in the council. The current arrangement is that the private sector has only one slot in the Council. We are considering providing the private sector with an additional slot because the sector plays a very big role in the climate change aspect. As explained by the Leader of the Majority Party, green energy is key to climate change control in this country. We have already looked at the regulations with a view to cascading these issues to the countryside up to the village-level. We want to educate the people out there that they can, indeed, earn carbon credits on the aspect of commercial forests and make extra money for themselves. You can earn a lot of money by just planting trees and reducing carbon emission. For example, if a school was emitting five tonnes of carbon dioxide to the air through cooking their food in a day, such a school can decide to reduce its carbon emission into the atmosphere by using cooking gas instead of firewood. That switch over from wood fuel to cooking gas will result in a reduction in carbon emission into the atmosphere. Just by the act of such school using gas or something better to cook instead of timber, it will earn an amount of money commensurate to the amount of carbon credits it would have earned. When our President came up with the idea of planting 15 billion trees, people thought that we were doing something for conservation. Our President has realised the amount of revenue that we can generate. As we speak, we are rated number eight in terms of the amount of money that we receive out of carbon market trading, which is a big business. However, carbon credit money has been going into the pockets of some individuals in foreign countries and to a few Kenyans. The revision of this law and the planting of 15 billion trees will boost our country’s GDP by a big percentage from the proceeds of carbon market trading. Hon. Deputy Speaker, I have already spoken about the transition of the existing players in the carbon trading market. We are critically looking at the proposal by Hon. Chachu Ganya with a view to introducing a transitional clause to cater for the already existing players in the carbon credit trading market. We want to give them time to transit into the Act once it comes into force. Disputes are things we should anticipate when enacting the law on trading activities of any kind. It is, therefore, important to remember that the Community Development Agreement mechanism has a provision on how to address disputes that may arise. If you do not agree as The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}