President Kenyatta urges international partners to invest in green energy

President Uhuru Kenyatta has called on international partners to tap into local green energy opportunities and help the country abandon harmful sources of electricity by 2030.

At a virtual event on green and renewable energy, the President admitted Kenya’s goals of attaining absolute green energy are continually facing a shortage of funds which require investors to come in.

“We target to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.  Further, we aim to achieve 100 percent access to Clean Cooking by 2028,” he said.

“But ladies and gentlemen, access to finance remains a critical barrier to faster progress in achieving our targets.”

The President spoke virtually from Nairobi at the Virtual High-Level Dialogue on Energy, on the sidelines of the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly on Friday in New York, an event that brought together world leaders, players in the energy sector and campaigners for green and safer energy use. It was the first ever global gathering on energy under the UN General Assembly, since 1981 when it held the Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy.

The event this time though was being held as part of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 targets meant to alleviate extreme poverty, guard the environment, fight poverty, end conflict and improve basic standards of living by 2030.

One of the goals says the world will ensure access to affordable, and sustainable energy for all by 2030. In November, world leaders will also converge in Glasgow to discuss the Paris Agreement, a treaty on taming the effects of climate change.

In Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta said there has been significant progress, installing 73 percent of renewable energy which is currently consumed by 90 percent across Kenya.

Maintaining and expanding on that though will require money. And there has been talk of raising tariffs, with fuel already costing more than last year by Sh20.

At the Conference, the President urged the international community to back a joint call-for-action on clean energy, a proposal by Kenya, Malawi and The Netherlands to push common policy on energy.

Kenya also submitted an Energy Compact on clean cooking, to encourage countries and investors to target cleaner cooking. In most Kenyan homesteads, people use paraffin and firewood, which emit dangerous gases, besides depleting forest covers. An earlier project to pipe cooking gas to Kenyan homes was abandoned over safety concerns and lack of appropriate infrastructure in 2018.

Nonetheless, the President suggested safer cooking projects will be launched in future.

“Kenya has demonstrated that it is possible to achieve ambitious development goals while remaining green.

““We have installed the biggest wind power plant in sub-Sahara Africa, the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, and are steadily exploiting and deploying available geothermal potential, currently estimated at 10,000 Megawatts.”

The conference was also addressed by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who said the huge divide on energy sources must be closed to save the world from fossil fuels by 2050.

“That means cutting in half the number of people without access to electricity by 2025. And it means providing over 1 billion people with access to clean cooking solutions by 2025,” he said.

“To reach universal energy access by 2030 and maintain a net-zero trajectory by mid-century, we must mobilise predictable finance at scale and promote technology transfer to the developing world.

“We need to triple investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency to 5 trillion dollars a year,” he said.

Ahead of the November meeting in Glasgow, the UN is calling for renewed commitments to lower dangerous emissions to levels before 2010 by 2030, with zero emissions 20 years later.