Unep boss: Covid-19 is a tragedy, but the world still faces bigger threats
Inger Andersen, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of the UN Environment Programme (Unep)
Interview with Inger Andersen, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of the UN Environment Programme (Unep).
World Environment Day was celebrated on June 5. What does this mean to you?
World Environment Day is the largest global platform for environmental public outreach and action. Since 1974, it has been celebrated every year on June 5: engaging governments, businesses, celebrities and citizens to focus their efforts on a pressing environmental issue.
In 2021, we must take deliberate steps to move from crisis to healing, and in so doing, recognise that restoring nature is imperative to the survival of our planet and the human race. This year, World Environment Day will mark the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.
Designed to connect and empower, the decade will build political momentum, generate scientific research and create a groundswell of support for action on ecosystem restoration.
A decade might seem like a long time, but scientists say the next 10 years will count most in the fight to avert climate change and avert biodiversity loss. It is our chance to put the planet back on a sustainable course because restoring our ecosystems is addressing the Sustainable Development Goals.
Covid-19 has taken the world through unusual tragic times. But you have argued that the world must not return to the ‘old normal’. What does this mean?
The Covid-19 pandemic is a global tragedy, but it is not a one-off event, or even the biggest threat humanity faces. It is an overture of what is to come if we do not finally heed the many warnings the planet has been sending and transform our economies and societies.
As countries invest unprecedented money into kick-starting economies, we cannot go back to normal, and by normal, I mean our high-carbon and resource-intensive economic models, because that is the root of the problem to begin with.
There is wide agreement that Covid-19 recovery spending is a great chance to accelerate action on the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals and other critical agendas. Research such as Unep’s Emissions Gap report backs this up, showing that green Covid-19 recovery spending could knock 25 per cent off emissions by 2030.
However, we are not yet building back better. With the University of Oxford, IMF, UNDP, GIZ and other partners, Unep looked at 3,500 policies in 50 major economies in 2020. The research showed that only 18 per cent of recovery spending and 2.5 per cent of total spending had positive green characteristics.
Investment in nature – the very foundation upon which our societies and economies are built – has also been disappointingly small, at just 3 per cent of recovery spend. But even as we do so, we must keep in mind that countries simply cannot afford any more debt distress. As the UN Secretary-General has noted, reforming the debt architecture is vital.
There are some examples where we are seeing recovery money flowing to the right places. Spain has invested $10 billion in green infrastructure.
China has created a $13.5 billion fund for environmental protection, energy efficiency and green transport. India has put $817 million into afforestation and other areas. And we have seen here in Kenya, Nairobi for example, investments being made in rehabilitating green spaces.
But when we look globally, we need to do better, which means investing in five areas identified in the recovery research. These are clean and efficient energy; clean transport; green buildings; natural capital; and research and development for sustainable and clean technologies.
How is Unep helping Kenya to address the impact of Covid-19?
In 2020, the United Nations in Kenya moved swiftly to support the government in addressing the Covid-19 global pandemic. As you may recall at that time, the country was also reeling from the impacts of floods, a locust invasion and the pandemic.
UN agencies (including Unep) based in Kenya under the lead of the UN resident coordinator reallocated $45 million (Sh4.76 billion) from the existing United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) (2018-2020) resources under the three strategic areas: transformative governance, human capital development and inclusive sustainable development and inclusive growth.
In response to the pandemic, we at Unep refocused our efforts both to deal with immediate challenges and to push harder on the long-term solution – which is creating a world that works with nature, not against it.
Unep’s focus, based on our longstanding approach of ensuring that science and data drive effective policy, falls into four broad areas: delivering a transformational change for nature and people, investing in a green economic package towards the pandemic recovery, helping nations to manage Covid-19 waste and modernising global environmental governance.
As part of this support, Unep is supporting the Ministry of Environment in Kenya to develop a nature-recovery strategy that will support the country’s recovery from the impact of Covid-19 and climate change.
As the head of Unep, what is your vision and priorities? And what are some of your achievements so far?
Since I joined Unep, I have consistently sounded the alarm on the need to focus on the “triple planetary crisis” of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution and waste that are putting our economic and social well-being at risk, while undermining opportunities to reduce poverty and improve lives and livelihoods, as demonstrated by the Covid-19 crisis.
Furthermore, they also risk irreversibly changing our relationship with the natural world. The core driver of these crises is decades of relentless and unsustainable consumption and production which is chipping away at the earth’s foundations, putting at risk, our very future on this planet.
So, my vision is a world where we tackle the earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being as one integrated and indivisible challenge. This requires us to transform our economic and financial systems to power and enable a shift to sustainability. Easy to say, harder to do, but essential for our long-term survival.
Activists march on June 5, 2018 in Nairobi, carrying placards bearing messages to denounce plans by the Kenyan government to mine coal close to the pristine coastal archipelago of Lamu, on World Environment Day.
Equally important is for us to transform food, water and energy systems so that we are able to meet growing human needs in an equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly manner.
And finally, my vision is of a world where the “haves” stand in unwavering solidarity with the “have-nots” because whether we like it or not, environmental challenges in one country will impact another. Global solidarity is the most effective vaccine we have against the environmental challenges we face.
So, my first achievement would be that we at Unep have contributed to a growing understanding globally that environmental challenges cannot be addressed in silos and that we must be more inclusive. Our new medium-term strategy puts this integrated understanding of environmental crises at the heart of our work over the next five years, as we step up action in this decade, critical for progress on environment and climate change.
A second achievement would be that despite all the odds, and with the unwavering support of our host country Kenya, we were able to host a first-ever virtual UN Environment Assembly where we saw several important decisions taken by member states of global significance on the environment.
With more than 2,000 delegates joining from around the world, we were able to demonstrate that Nairobi remains the global centre for environmental governance, and even as the pandemic has resulted in the postponement of many meetings over the last 12 months, the UN Environment Assembly demonstrated that the business of environmental governance remains more important than ever.
And finally, I am proud of how Unep pivoted its work last year to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. We supported member states in addressing immediate challenges from the medical emergency, such as strengthening waste management systems; delivered stronger science to back a healthier planet; and have elevated our work on “one health” with an understanding that animal, human and environmental health is one and the same.
However, let me be honest, the environmental pillar remains the weakest, and this is what Unep is working hard to change.
What must Kenya do to meet Sustainable Development Goal 13 on combating climate change and its impacts?
Like all countries in the region, Kenya is facing the devastating impacts of climate change. It is estimated that the country loses 2.0–2.4 per cent of its gross domestic product annually due to the effects of climate change, such as drought and floods, according to a 2018 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics study. Covid-19 is only going to make these challenges more acute.
Temperatures in Kenya are projected to continue rising by 1.7°C by the 2050s and by approximately 3.5°C at the end of the century. This will have catastrophic effects and as President Kenyatta recently noted, “Climate change is the foremost emerging security challenge of our time”.
This means the country must act on multiple fronts. First and foremost, Kenya, like all countries in the world, must stretch nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted ahead of the Glasgow COP 26 and I welcomed President Kenyatta’s announcement at the Leaders Climate Summit hosted by President Biden that the country has committed to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent by 2030. Kenya is in fact, one of two African countries to have already submitted revised NDCs.
Second, Kenya should continue to capitalise on its leadership on clean energy, which accounts for 90 per cent of electricity supply. Long a pioneer in geothermal energy, the country can look to extend low carbon innovations to the informal sector which employs approximately 80 per cent of the workforce in the country.
In our work for example, we have seen that clean energy solutions that are tailored to small businesses such as mechanical solar dryers can help better preserve agro-produce for informal food producers and generate higher incomes.
Solar-powered micro-irrigation, for example, has been demonstrated to increase farm-level incomes by up to 10 times, improving yields by up to 300 per cent and reducing water usage by up to 90 per cent. So, there are many such opportunities to tap into.
Third, Kenya should continue to invest in ecosystem-based adaptation. In this context I congratulate the government of Kenya for the ambitious plan to increase forest cover to 10 per cent by 2022. This is a very ambitious goal and we were pleased to see this reflected in Kenya’s NDCs.
On World Environment Day this year, we will be launching the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, aiming to halt, protect and reverse degradation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Every day, those of us lucky enough to live near the glorious Karura forest are reminded of the positive impact of protecting and restoring our forests on the weather, and on our physical and mental well-being.
So we look to Kenya, which has so much experience in restoration, to lead the global charge to restore our ecosystems, because after all we all know that those that move first, and quickly, will gain the most.
Nature lovers cycle at Karura Forest.
The dumping of hazardous and household waste is a big problem in Kenya. What practical steps are required to ensure effective waste management?
Waste is one of the most visible signs of unsustainable consumption and production on the natural world. It affects everybody, everywhere and we need to pay far greater attention to its health impacts, particularly on poorer populations. The World Bank estimates that at least 33 per cent of waste is mismanaged globally today, through open dumping or burning.
Unep’s Africa Waste Management Outlook reveals that Nairobi city, for example, generates 0.72kg per capita per day of municipal solid waste. This is amongst the highest on the continent. Much of Africa’s and indeed Kenya’s success in urbanisation will depend on how waste is managed. This requires action on multiple fronts.
The first priority is to address the public health imperative, by ensuring that all citizens have access to proper waste management services. Comprehensive, reliable and regular city cleansing and controlled disposal of waste is the foundation of every integrated waste management system.
Secondly, Kenya should harness the opportunities of ‘waste as resource’ by unlocking the socio-economic opportunities of waste as resource. This means we look not just at disposal, but at reducing and preventing waste in the first place, through reuse, recycling and recovery.
And an imperative on the disposal side is that Kenya shift from uncontrolled dumping to sanitary engineered landfilling of residual waste. We must be careful also in choosing waste services and infrastructure so that they are sustainable, appropriate for local conditions and can be implemented quickly.
Garbage collectors are surrounded by storks as they sort through garbage at the Dandora dumpsite in Nairobi on on September 13, 2017.
Assessments have shown increasing gaps between countries’ ambitions and actions against the reality of climate change. What is Unep doing to help Kenya fight climate change?
Unep is proud to support our host government in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss in the country. We engage with national regulatory authorities to develop and enforce environment-related regulations and to integrate environmental sustainability in the plans of counties.
We support the National Environment Management Authority on issues relating to pollution, and on land restoration with the Kenya Forest Service through its work on the greening Kenya initiative.
Through the EU-Unep Africa Low Emissions Development Project, for example, we have helped put in place analytical tools that forecast the long-term socioeconomic and climate impacts of investing in low emissions development.
Our aim here is to support Kenya in generating the evidence base it needs to strengthen implementation of the national-determined contributions or NDCs and look at alternate investments that are nature positive.
We also do a lot of exciting work in Kenya on clean mobility. We supported a programme to promote walking and cycling infrastructure. As a result, Nairobi is now systematically seeking to integrate walking and cycling paths when building or upgrading road infrastructure.
We also supported Kenya with cleaner fuels standards, and as a result Kenya now imports unleaded fuels (was the first country in East Africa to do so) and ultra-low sulphur fuels.
We are working on several electric mobility initiatives: the government has halved some of the import duties on electric vehicles (which has resulted in an increase in imports of electric vehicles); we launched four electric motorcycle pilots in Kenya (in Kisumu, Nairobi and Kisii), and are supporting the government and its partners with the introduction and switch-over to zero emissions electric motorcycles.
We are also involved in the introduction of electric buses in Kenya – both minibuses and large full-size buses – also as part of the new bus mass transit systems that Nairobi is introducing.
And last but certainly not least, through projects financed by the Global Environment Facility, we support conservation initiatives such as the blue forests project, where we are working with partners in eight countries including Kenya to test “blue-carbon” and other nature-based climate solutions.
In the Tana Delta, we work on restoring degraded landscapes in the region through integrated natural resource management. These are just some examples of our efforts in Kenya in support of achieving environmental goals in the country.
