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{
"id": 1283099,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1283099/?format=api",
"text_counter": 116,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Oketch Gicheru",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "When it comes to matters of climate change, where we find ourselves today as a country, we need to be more scientific and also rely on data. As we review this Bill, we must look at the journey that we have travelled as a country to be part of this Bill. I wish to comment that the sense of climate change and control of climate issues in our country, cannot be without recognising the fact that fossil fuel has been at the edge of why global warming issues have been a problem. In 1896, a scientist called Svante put up a very compelling argument, that burning fossil fuels was the major cause of climate change in the Global South and Global North. Nobody paid attention to him until the 1930s, when other scientists joined him to argue the case for Northern United States of America (USA), as well as the Northern Pacific, for what was becoming a major problem. Mr. Speaker, Sir, at that time, there was another British scientist in Europe, Guy Stewart Callendar. He was the first scientist to use data, science and mathematical models to argue the case for climate crisis. However, he was not taken seriously. It was up until 1988 when James Hansen, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientist, brought this issue to the United Nations (UN). He raised that global warming, due to fossil fuels, was a major issue. The UN responded by forming the first inter-panel on climate change in 1988. I am giving this backdrop because the Paris Agreement comes from that backdrop. In 1992, we had the Rio Conference. In that Conference, many developed countries that were causing serious climate problems, including USA at that time, did not participate in making sure that our countries could be compensated. The Paris Agreement, for which this particular Bill comes from, proposes a market mechanism. It is an agreement that seeks to enable us, as countries, to develop our internal mechanisms. While I support this Bill, I encourage its drafters to think critically about the carbon markets and we make it more practical to local communities. For instance, in Section 23(c), we are giving the Cabinet Secretary full control of a carbon market, which does not allow even the Cabinet Secretary to interact with Parliament, to ensure that we have reporting mechanisms to Parliament in accordance with Article 94 of the Constitution. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise to support. However, I wish to urge that as a nation, we must think about more practical mitigation, adaptation and resilience mechanisms that work for us in the context of ensuring that if we do not have legally binding elements by the Western nations to compensate or even participate in this market, we have our ways of dealing with climate change. Thank you."
}