President Uhuru Kenyatta addressing delegates during the opening plenary of the Climate Summit 2014 for Heads of State and Government at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. PHOTO | PSCU
NEW YORK
President Uhuru Kenyatta has played a prominent role even before giving his maiden statement at the United Nations General Assembly set for Wednesday.
President Kenyatta, who is visiting the UN headquarters for the first time, chaired the climax session of the Climate Summit 2014 on Tuesday.
The session, which focused on energy, was attended by invited Heads of State and Government and world leaders in finance, business, and civil society.
Besides chairing the energy session of the Climate Summit, President Kenyatta also hosted a high-level meeting at the UN to marshall governments to use domestic funding to support their health systems.
The meeting on health was attended by leaders from government, finance, universities, medical services and civil society.
The President is set to address the UN General Assembly Wednesday at 3pm (10pm Kenyan time).
President Kenyatta gave a speech at the beginning of the Climate Summit in which he called for bold actions by governments to provide affordable, sustained and modern energy.
At the end of the summit, he gave another speech in which he called for scaled up international cooperation to reduce Green House Gas emissions.
At the energy summit, which was co-chaired by the Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, President Kenyatta called for more emphasis on a global shift towards the use of renewable energy.
“The challenge has moved on, from whether renewable energy can power modern lifestyles at a reasonable cost — which we now know it can — to how best to finance and accelerate its deployment to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix,” he said.
President Kenyatta said he was happy that many African countries are already taking strong action to invest in renewable energy to address the power deficit in the continent.
He then outlined how Kenya has deployed green power making it a leader in renewable energy.
“I am happy to report that on Kenya’s grid today, we have over 70 per cent renewable energy,” he said.
Kenya was the first country in Africa to adopt geothermal power in 1956 and is home to the Ol-Karia II, the largest geothermal power plant on the continent.The renewable energy sector has been opened to private operators, who now run geothermal power plants and are investing in wind farms.
The President encouraged African countries to continue opening their energy sectors to private operators to attract further investments.
“We need to turn the challenges of climate change into investment opportunities for present and future generations,” he said.
President Kenyatta also used the climate change session to announce the launch of the Africa Clean Energy Corridor (ACEC).
The corridor covers 22 countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa regions and aims at providing affordable, clean and secure renewable power supply.
“The Africa Clean Energy Corridor is a decisive and focused action agenda to link markets and connect resources with demand, and to unlock massive economies of scale for the deployment of renewable energy,” he said.
He said regional cooperation on renewable energy deployment would save 2,500 metric tons of cumulative carbon monoxide emissions by 2030, and increase electricity supply 2.5 times.
The International Agency for Renewable Energy will work closely with the 22 countries that are involved in clean energy effort.
The President said it was imperative for big countries to reduce greenhouse emissions to protect the future of the least developed countries and island nations.
“The actions announced here today should not only send a strong political message on our commitment towards addressing climate change, but also push the intergovernmental process under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to conclude negotiations on a post Kyoto climate change agreement,” he said.
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