Sunday, July 26, 2015 

New EAC climate change Bill in offing

BY SAMUEL NABWIISO

KAMPALA, UGANDA - The East African Community (EAC) is in the process of drafting a bill aimed at mitigating climate change among the five regional member states. 

The EAC Deputy Secretary General in charge of Production and Social Sector,  Jessica Eriyo said EAC needs stronger regulations if climate change is to be mitigated.

“Technical people at the secretariat are busy drafting the bill which will be tabled before the regional parliament for discussion after being scrutinized by the sector council of ministers.  We expect the whole process to take about 1-2 years before the bill is passed into an Act,” Eriyo said. 

Delivering a key address during the recent East African Carbon Fair in Kampala, Eriyo observed that the absence of strong regulations geared at climate management means the region will continuously be faced with climate challenges such as flooding and prolonged droughts. Cases to point out include mudslides in Bududa, mountain Elgon region in Eastern Uganda  that  resulted in the death of about 18 people in 2012 and prolonged droughts in Kenya’s cattle corridor in North western part of the country that forced Kenyan herdsmen (Turkana and the Pokot ) migrate to Uganda looking for grazing land.    

 The Secretary general  told participants that  once the law is in place member states will be able to  allocate resources for climate management and implement  international mitigation strategies such as the Clean Development Mechanism( CDM)under the Kyoto protocol . The fair brought together project developers, funding agencies, buyers, investors and companies interested in green growth.

The Clean Development Mechanism is a market based approach that enables generation and trade of certified emission reductions units on a global scale.

Eriyo noted that the EAC community has tried to mitigate climate change by developing guiding principles such as the EAC Climate Change Policy and the East African Climate Change Master Plan but implementation is being challenged by the lack of harmonized Climate Change Regulation.

EAC countries are signatory to the Kyoto protocol which  is an International agreement  linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change which commits its parties by setting international bidding emission reduction targets.

Under the protocol countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures, however the protocol also offers three market based approaches: International Emission Trading, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation. According to the protocol if these approaches are implemented then emission of greenhouse gasses among the least developing countries will be reduced.

However the implementation of such market based interventions by countries in the EAC block is being challenged by inadequate information, inadequate financial resources and poor technical advances.

“CDM implementation in EAC is not viable because Governments and the private sector lack implementation skills. It is only the Multinational companies that are getting access to CDM funds from   the United Nations,” Eriyo said.

In EAC, CDM funds have been accessed by multibillion investors such as Agha khan who has engaged in clean energy development projects such as the Bujagali energy project. Others in the region include international investors operating in Kenya who have accessed CDM funds and invested in geothermal plants.

For Countries like Uganda and the rest of EAC member states to benefit from CDM funds experts say the private sector should come up with viable project proposals to mitigate climate change.

“The private sector has not exploited the business opportunity which lies within the CDM approach. It is time to start up projects that can attract funding from CDM,” said Bill Farmer the Chairman of Uganda carbon Bureau.

Some of the projects that can attract support from the United Nations under CDM market based mitigation approach include making of energy saving stoves, planting trees and solar energy projects. 

The East African carbon fair conference was organized by Germany’s GIZ in partnership with the United Nations Frame work convention on climate change in East African Community. 

The carbon fair provided opportunities for companies engaging in carbon trading to directly interact and access potential markets for their emission reduction certificates.

By Samuel Nabwiiso, Sunday, July 26th, 2015