President Uhuru Kenyatta is set to lead other African Heads of State after Kenya assumed chairmanship of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC).
President Kenyatta assumed the role on the sideline of the ongoing 35th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Kenyatta takes over the mandate from his South African counterpart President Cyril Ramaphosa.
CAHOSCC was created in 2009 to spearhead African Common Position on Climate Change and to ensure that Africa speaks with one voice in global climate change negotiations. Speaking during the handover, Ramaphosa noted that Kenya was the suitable country for the role having been “a leading voice on issues of climate change in Africa”.
He also underscored the importance of Africa speaking with one voice ahead of this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt by developing a common position.
In November 2021, President Uhuru Kenyatta took the stage at the Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and bragged about Kenya’s clean energy projects that have kept the country ahead of its peers.
He noted that the country was so adept in climate change matters and that it was on course to convert all its energy sources into clean energy by 2050.
To prove his case, he highlighted some of the big-budget clean-energy projects he had placed in motion including the construction of a wind power project, Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP), the largest of its kind in Sub-saharan Africa.
Since he took over the office, he explained that access to electricity has also grown from 30 per cent to 75 per cent countrywide easing pressure on forest dependency for cooking sources.
“We in Kenya have made significant progress in advancing access to affordable and clean energy for all. In this regard, we have increased access to electricity from below 30 per cent in 2013 to 75 per cent. We have installed the biggest wind power project in Sub-Saharan Africa and are steadily exploiting and deploying available geothermal potential currently estimated at some 10,000 megawatts to help us push our green agenda.
“Renewable energy in Kenya currently accounts for 73% of all our installed power generation capacity while 90 per cent of all the electricity we use is from clean sources. We are on course of achieving our target of 100 per cent use of clean energy by 2030,” he stated.
