Climate Change: African countries need to be recognized for their efforts

 

First World countries should give grants to third world countries because of mitigating the climate through carbon sinks, Pastor Dorcas Rigathi has said.

Speaking when she launched a tree planting exercise organized by Tana and Athi Rivers Development authority- TARDA in Kiamukuyu Ward, Mathira East Pastor Dorcas said African countries in particular need to be recognized for their efforts in saving the world through carbon sinks. Carbon sinks play a vital role in the capture of excess carbon dioxide (CO2) from our atmosphere.

A carbon sink is anything that absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. These include plants, oceans and soil.

“African countries are the ones who have been having carbon sinks, and we have been saving the world, while the other first world countries are polluting. Because we have carbon credit coming into play, there is a better way of mitigating loans for third world countries,” she said.

The Earth’s natural carbon sinks absorb around a half of the excess CO2 that we produce, preventing global temperatures from rising even further.

However, they’re under threat from human activity, and some of our carbon sinks may even become carbon sources if we don’t do more to stop their destruction.

“We already have carbon in existence and saving the world, we need to start to appeal so that we use that as collateral for the loans they give us or better still they should give us grants because we have mitigated the climate for a very long time,” she added.

During the tree planting exercise 21,000 trees were planted and distributed for planting to the community.

Pastor Dorcas has already planted more than 1 million trees through widows and youth groups in different parts of the country among them Loitoktok in Kajiado County and Ngorano in Nyeri County where a group of youth under her program has planted half a million trees following a directive by the president of planting 15 billion trees by the year 2032.

“I have 1 million trees which are in tree nursery beds, 500,000 are here in Kiamariga and we intend to make that an economic empowerment for the boy child, and the other one which is in Loitoktok is for widows,” she said.

Also present were Mathira MP Eric Wamumbi, TARDA Chairman Patrick Gichohi, TARDA CEO Liban Rioba among others. 

BY KBC NEWS