 Hey, wait, I don't know where to go, somebody should be coming for it, but again, welcome if you have been with us since the beginning or the beginning, welcome back. My name is Valentine or at Colour Me Vell, but if this is your first encounter with either me or the channel or the show, you are in the perfect place, the Ladies' Breakfast Show in this hair town, in this hair city, there's a country, since now president likes to country hope or continent hope. I'm about to give us more ranking, not part of ranking. Hashtag is MCM, a day where we crush on our kings, and of course I can tell you how to interact with us at Y254 on Facebook, Y254 channel on X, Y254 underscore channel on the gram, and them others that's threads, TikTok and YouTube. In case you want to watch an interview again and again, like you just can't get enough of it, or you missed it, but for any reason or the other, now we're going to enter a very interesting conversation. It's started with an intro, then we brushed on politics and kind of slid into climate to actually bring this to a wonderful open, so we're transitioning very smoothly because the conversation we're going to have with this two very handsome gentlemen, if I may add, but they have a lot of spunk in them and I think that's how I like them this morning. On a Monday, nothing is blue except this set, or other parts of the set, and that guy should, but let me allow them to introduce themselves. Good morning gentlemen. Good morning. How are you? I'll start with you. What is your good name? Yes, my name is Brian Kitingi. I'm the Executive Director of the Policy Action Initiative, which is a very, very unique organization that brings together young people who are committed to changing the world and bringing up intricate solutions to solve the problems that our society faces, and usually do it through policy research, policy analysis, and a little bit of capacity building because you have to train people and you have to ensure that people are aware of both the proposed and the current policies that we have in place, specifically around four thematic areas, sustainable development, environmental action, and we know that the environment is a very big thing because if you don't take care of the environment, you're not going to be healthy, so the environment encompasses almost everything about life, and aside from those issues, there's also about sustainable peace and security, and also democratic governance because at the end of the day, we are here because we are freedom of speech, we are freedom of association. That's where I was able to move from, where I am in Georgia to come here. So we combine all these four areas and usually do a little bit of analysis, research, and capacity building to ensure that we involve more young people in governance processes. It's my favorite kind of guest. One question, two minute answer. We're going to have a good time. I like to insist that people say Elijah in the way I've said it. Yes, thank you. You're doing so well. So I am currently operations in research at policy action initiative. I like the way my colleague has already explained what we do, therefore I can literally take exactly what we need to introduce myself. Yes, but really research and operations, so my focus is especially on research, what is going on around development, around policy and all that, and what can we do so that we can also have those discussions about how we can also have the same impact within our society. Yes. All right, so we say charity begins at home, right? And we just recently had the conclusion of the COP28, that's the climate conference that was happening in Dubai, and it was concluded yesterday, that is Sunday, the third day of December. Now, one of the things that was mentioned was, or rather critics, let me not call them critics, let me call them activists, activists, because they were given a healthy amount of money amounting to approximately 680 billion Kenyan shillings, that's like 4.67 billion in dollars, American dollars, to curb certain things. And the president or his Excellency mentioned two major sectors, that is agriculture and energy, right? However, activists are confused, or they're saying that we should have this money going more into adapting, because we just had a drought a year ago, the president came into power facing a drought situation, and now we are having the El Nino phenomena. So according to policy, do you think these activists are right, even before we go to the floods right now, before I read out some numbers, we talk about how MPs were lost in Ntana. Before we talk about all that, just tell me the policies around that. Yes, actually, now you have to look at it from this point of view. First of all, we have to admit that Africa only contributes 3% to global emissions, and if we come to Kenya specifically, because you're not among the top industrialized nations in Africa, it's about 0.15% of global emissions. So in this case, it means that mitigation is not a very, very big factor. Mitigation is about reducing emissions. In climate, there's mitigation and there's adaptation. So mitigation is not a very big factor. So adaptation should be where the focus is, and when you look at what they say about adaptation is, Africa as a continent, we require $300 billion each year to address climate change in order to carry out these adaptation activities. And we are very lucky in our country, Kenya, it's very, very different from countries like Nigeria or Algeria or the ones that have that were blessed with very many oil deposits. So in this case, in our case, we have already transitioned to renewable energy. 80% of our grid comes from geothermal and hydro, which is renewable energy. And when you look at it, what they mean by adaptation is we need funding for, in order for us to switch from traditional agriculture, because remember that agriculture is the largest contributor to GDP in our country. It's the largest employer, even if many young people don't like working in farms. But it does. It does because that's where our food comes in. Most young people in the rural areas, where most people live, that's where they stay. So when they talk about adaptation is how are we going to transition to smart agriculture? How are we going to help communities that are in the northern parts of Kenya? I know people always think that Kenya revolves around Nairobi, a little bit of Mombasa and Diani where you go to the beach and enjoy. But majority, not majority, but a substantial population stay above the equator where the conditions are very arid. And in this case, the main economic activity is livestock rearing. So how are we going to help them adapt to this new change in climate? And that may mean, for example, if communities are keeping cattle, they have to transition and start planting. So gum indigenous crops, they have to transition their lifestyle. So when you talk about adaptation in our case, it's about smart agriculture, helping those communities transition to a new way of living, aside from pastoralism, and also helping people who live in urban informal settlements by building good drainage. Because remember that whenever floods happen, I used to live in Madari back in the day when I was hustling. And it's very, very tough. You can't even go to... The emperor, the lion, the champion. Yeah, it's a very, very hard imagine even to go to school. And many people actually, a lot of school hours are lost, a lot of economic hours are lost whenever it floods. So how are we going also to help them adapt? We're going to build better drainage. If it's people in Mombasa, you remember like there was a time Mombasa was the ocean had already come to... Had migrated. Nasiq Tambo. Nasiq Tambo. It's just two weeks ago. So adaptation also in that case, how are we going to build sustainable infrastructure in areas that are near the coastal, near the ocean, or near the lakeside? Because you know that due to the changing conventional rainfall patterns, these places are going to have more rainfall than before. So the current existing infrastructure cannot handle that. So they are right in that case. Our focus should be there. The adaptive... Yes. Now the same question, but I want to switch it up a bit. So what are we doing right now? So the 680 billion lands at our doorstep, how do we deal with El Nino as it comes? And of course, you know, extreme climate change now caters for both bloods and droughts. So today we're complaining it's raining too much. Tomorrow we don't have enough food. So how do we do that? So it's like you actually taking it right out of my mind exactly how I have it, which is interesting. This is what happens. I think it's so common in this country to hear it's raining. Oh, it's flooding, government help us, all this, all this, all that. Then within a few months, in fact, sometimes can happen even within two, three months. Oh my goodness, we are starving, we're starving, the land is dry, our animals are dying and all this and all this and all this. So we always have we have periods of excessively a lot of a lot of water that causes flooding, which wrecks havoc on lives. Then we follow shortly with very dry conditions that again, wrecks havoc on our lives, we lose lives and cattle and all that. So some of the ways we can use this $680 billion to address perhaps this particular problem. Number one is we need to look at already proven technologies, one of which is just water harvesting, as basic as that. Now, when you have water harvesting, you already have less water that can flow to cause flooding, because you know, we're already harvesting it and storing it somewhere. Whether this is of course the options that we're used to traditionally we have options of dams. That's number one. But now we even have technologies that allow us to put this water in tanks that is much cheaper. There's some tanks we have where the outside is made of steel, that the inside is made of rubber and some of them can store as much as 2 million liters of water, right? All you need is just flat land and all that. Now, when you have such technologies, you can harvest this water so that during the periods of dryness when we have drought, people will have access to water, right? So people will not say we're dying, we're dying because they'll have access to water. Whether it is in dams or these modern technology tanks. That's number one, right? So when it's flooding, that's what we should do so that when it's dry, we can now use up that water. But then if I take this even farther, this is a country where the places when it's dry, we still have rivers that are running. Have we thought of investing in irrigation? I think the president's mind is in the right direction because he's talking about agriculture and energy. Here are two suggestions on that. Number one, when it comes to agriculture, our rivers flow. Kenyans are excessively educated in terms of agriculture. You go to the university, you're not short of people who know how to irrigate dry lands. Our Kenyans have gone as far as Israel to study how exactly do you grow food in the desert. Kenya isn't even a desert. We should not have food in security. These people have the knowledge, they know how. And many of them are youths. You just need to engage them. They will show you how we grow food in the desert because they already know it and we're not even a desert, it's a semi-desert. That's another place to invest in, in irrigation agriculture, right? When it comes to energy, did you know that in Kenya, we have more capacity for geothermal power than we require to use as a country? In terms of the capability, if we were to harness all the energy that is available for geothermal, we have more power than we need ourselves. So that means that's another area we can invest. We can invest in geothermal power. And a good thing with geothermal power is it's not dependent on rainfall. See, a hydropower can be a challenge sometimes because when it gets dry, then hydropower, not sure we'll have the power. But with geothermal power, it's available all year round. We need to invest in the drilling of more wells, alright, so that we can now push our grid to possibly more than 95% geothermal, if not 99, 100. Because, rather, let me say renewable, not just geothermal, because this is possible. Those are areas that we can look into investing. You can look also into investing in solar power. Now, I have big thoughts on solar power. I know people talk about large land being used for solar power. There are simple things we can adapt. It's because I familiarise myself with all arguments as regards to do this or not to do this. So one thing we can do with solar power, a building like the one we're in, and all the buildings that are around, say, Nairobi and whatever urban areas or just rural areas, as long as there's a building right there, that is land, rather, the area of that building, the roof of that building, is a place where a solar panel can be placed or solar panels can be placed so that we can harvest energy. Did you know, in a single second, the earth receives more solar insulation than we use in every form of energy throughout the year? Every form. So if you take coal, you take gas, you take, we are still using solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, if you take all of that, the amount that falls on the earth in one second is more than we use in the whole year. That just shows you the potential that we also have right there. And your average household, if it was to be fully covered in solar panels, would produce three times as much power as it needs so that even be an excess to send out. So there's so many areas we can invest in and we need to ensure we have policies again that ensure it's very easy and people just want to do this. Yes. Before I get back to you, let me just, just on solar power alone, guys, this disclaimer is just on our opinion, but the facts are not debatable kindly, kindly. They can Google, right? Google is your friend. Please confirm. Yes. There's a notion, okay, we cannot take a ground just here. Solar panels are for people who live in leafy suburbs. So it's not for everyone. Is that how can we demystify that? How can we get that out of our system? Because it's not really true. It's just a panel too. Yes. So the challenge that has been previously with solar panels is that the initial cost seems high. But when you calculate in the wrong in the long run, the savings are significantly higher. Especially right now when there has been an increase in electricity prices, if somebody could invest, I'd highly recommend that. But one suggestion that I would definitely give, you know, with a 680 billion, is you can actually invest in plans where, rather you can build mechanisms and systems where people can actually have these things installed, all right? And one, pay for them slowly and over time. They actually already companies are doing that, right? You can pay for them slowly over time or have them installed for people. And remember what I said? About three times as much power as a place needs is what you can produce from a single roof. So you can have, you know, some of it just stay with whoever owns the roof. And then the excess can be exported to the rest of the grid. Now what Kenya needs to do is adapt our grid to also allow us to inject power. Something we have not done, we need to work on our policy to ensure that, you know, how will that work as number one? Then number two, we also need to work on our technology in terms of how our grid is. So we can do that. One city that has perhaps done this in a very excellent way should be Lancaster, California. These people invested so much in solar power right now. They ended up having excess electricity, which they have even used to produce hydrogen that is powering their local buses. Now California just for the record is not anywhere within the tropics in case someone does not know if they did not pay attention in geography class. Shade has been thrown a little bit, a little bit. I am just remembering, your geography teacher would be so proud. Yes, I hope she's watching me. Hi Malimu. So, so, so, but in Kenya we are within the tropics. That means we get a lot more sun and it's reliable throughout the year. So those are just some things we can we can do. Set up the mechanisms that allow people to pay slowly because in the long run we will benefit greatly as a country. We will have a lot of energy that is really much cheaper, reliable. Yes. Right, Brian. Now I am torn. I have two very wonderful questions I want to ask you, but I don't know if I can marry them or just ask them separately, but let's start with this. I will ignore this first part, guys, and we just talked about it with my co-host that is Brian Sacko 101 on all platforms. So there was a question posed to the spokesperson of the government concerning the attendance of the COP28 and to buy. Apparently there are too many people who want to, like, that's the part you can currently know that was my opinion. I was just echoing something I heard. However, what he did say that not only the public center went or the people you know representing the government, but also youth groups and women and NGOs and you know people from the Ministry of Energy, I'm guessing, climate and gender and all these wonderful things. So how what kind of policies do you expect that maybe will be implemented or introduced by these particular groups? Let's touch on the youth and and gender. Yeah, actually that's a very, very, very big problem because one thing that we have in this country is that and many young people actually when you go to the streets they usually complain is we hear that there is summit, there is this summit, like the Africa climate summit in September. That just happened. But no one, even when I when you go down to Akers, when you cross to Boyalan on the other side, you ask them, do you know what's happening at KSC? No, no one has involved us. And as a young person imagine you are you hear something is happening, there's a lot of climate, there's 680 billion, the other day so many foreigners came and they were in five-star hotels and no one tells us how does this benefit us and it becomes very problematic in order for you to involve them in all the solutions that my friend has actually mentioned very, very well because we know that for you to have climate adaptation or climate action or even environmental action because another thing is you know we don't want to be climate activists because climate action is only about reducing emissions. Environmental action is about everything pollution, biodiversity laws, habitat laws, deforestation. So we want to be environmental activists in that case, not climate activists. But for people who are wondering how then can I become an environmental activist when no one is involved in me, when no one is coming and telling us what is happening. Sorry for interrupting. Those two don't merit that the environmental activists of the climate because one leaves another. If I cut the trees it's going to affect the climate, no? Yeah, they marry each other but you know when you are just a climate activist the scope is very very limited. It's not like when you are an environmental because environmental deals with everything and like I said in the beginning that our emissions are also very negligible. So we shouldn't even be complaining about emissions when it comes to a country because we know that our emissions are 0.15 percent of the world's total. So it doesn't really really like it's just a drop in the ocean figuratively a drop in the ocean. So in this case that one thing that you need for young people is we have the Climate Change Amendment Act that was signed into law by President Truto in August. It's a very very good document and one of the places, one of the sections it mentions that the government should set up an awareness program to involve young people and to educate them and to sensitize them about climate and environment in general. And in this case they didn't go into specifics but ideally what now we should follow up is how do we do this awareness? We do it by contextualizing the message. If you're going to go to West Pocote, if you're going to go to Samburu, you're not going to go there and tell them about rising sea levels. I mean most of them have never even seen an ocean and it doesn't mean that they're backward or they aren't involved is that their environment is very different. So in this case you're going to talk to them about what? Pastoralism, about adapting to new socioeconomic lifestyles. If you're going to go to the lakeside, we are going to talk about flooding, we are going to talk about the prevalence of invasive species like the water hyacinth, if we go to Mombasa, if we go to Namu, the coastal areas, we are going to talk about the rising sea levels. If we go to Nairobi, we are going to talk about the drainage because this is an urban built-up environment. So it's about contextualizing the message when it comes to youth awareness. Another thing when it comes to gender mainstreaming is that because climate change affects us sadly women more than men because you know that in our country it's still a patriarchal country and majority of the times it is women who usually do household chores. So how is a woman going to go and do cleaning, how is a woman going to go and do cooking if there is no water in the household? If she's going to be forced to go and walk around 15 kilometers to go and fetch water then it means that a lot of her time is going to be wasted in order to complete a task which she could have done it easily in the past. So it prevents her from going in starting a salon or doing some grocery business and at the end of the day the poverty increases because you know that women most of the time contrary to popular opinion are the breadwinners of the family because the man has the money yes but it's a woman who ensures that the children eat. It's a woman who ensures that everything is there. So it's a reality. So in this case about gender mainstreaming one thing that we have one piece of documentation that we have policy that we have in place is the carbon credit trading and benefit sharing bill and in that bill it says that they are going to set up a scheme where companies polluting companies that pollute the Coca-Cola the big companies the ones that are responsible even named by the UNFCC the United Nations framework for for climate convention as the biggest climate change emitters they're going to come and they're going to fund initiatives that capture carbon from the atmosphere. So in this case they're going to set up a carbon credit trading and benefit sharing authority and in this case if you are a young person you have an initiative like for example planting mangroves planting trees if you have even an adaptation because you know that adaptation can be a form of carbon capture if it's done in the right way like my friend explained here. So in this case you're going to register the initiatives that you have and then the companies are going to come and select from the database. So that is I think one of the best ways one of the pieces of policies that you have that are going to assist in that but outside of that also we also need to streamline our stock exchange system and the reason why I'm saying that is because we know that climate financing has three innovative models there's the carbon markets there's a depth for climate swaps that is extending depth for climate investments and we have green bonds and green bonds is very very very innovative and very very exciting because what happens in green bonds is that companies are going to sell their bonds at very very cheap prices and young people or any person not even young if you're old but you're interested in making money not even just the environment you can invest in the green bonds and you know that Nigeria since Nigeria rolled it out it was a first African country in 2017 when they rolled it out at least 29 million dollars has been able to be exchanged to the beneficiaries and when you look at it globally that's just 0.4 percent of the global total so it means that green bonds have already become a big thing when you come to Europe when you come to America and it's going to become a very very innovative thing when it comes here to Africa but what we need to do is we need to streamline our stock exchange systems to ensure that young people can easily invest in it for example through mobile money through M-Pesa instead of going and paying going through the bureaucratic process of having a bank account and investing in that why can't I buy the bonds through M-Pesa just like the way I can insure it does just like the way I can Fuliza so it's about when it comes to the policies it's generally about contextualizing the message in terms of awareness implementing a system that is going to allow for the carbon markets for carbon markets for carbon credit trading and also investing not investing but streamlining processes that allow for innovative financing models like the green bonds so that young people can get opportunities from these places and the good thing is we have this frameworks in place it is just a matter of implementation and a little bit of streamlining yes so I should make a bit point on the green bonds ah green bonds is a thing is a thing it's a thing I guess two questions in part one would be we are a bit concerned as a people and by we I don't say me because the business example exists as a nation we've heard that the amount of money sounds quite large but you're not distributed over the number of people we are in the country and as you said people have different needs everywhere in the region like the people of the northern and and us the upburn setting possibly have different requirements so how can we feel confident that once these funds are received that they're going to be used properly how is there a way that the government or policy makers let me say policy makers can be so transparent that I as a lay person may me come a one zero may me come on to a ground I understand yes apparently this is something called COP 28 that happened and and we got a an amount and it's going here and here and here so maybe I'll stop with that well I'd say two things first I think education letting people know that this is available and how exactly it works that's number one but number two specifically to answer your question I think counties in terms of as he mentions the different regions each of these regions are in specific counties that are different it might be a bit difficult perhaps to coordinate all this from a central place perhaps to have accountant you know to account for it all in a central place just to know what is happening have a central system within government that looks at everything yes but in terms of the distribution of these funds and what they do I think counties okay should be a solution and specifically groups that are already working in the counties to provide this solution so know exactly how much money is being given to each and how that money is being spent so you can just come and solve the problems that exist in Nairobi or Mombasa and you know just the main city just the main urban area so to say you need if you're really going to reach the people on the ground you really need to use the counties in order to be able to provide this money to people on rather to provide this money to people who can offer solutions on the ground so in my opinion if you can employ this on the counties first first do your do your study if they've not done it yet figure out what is the problem in you know whatever county in this county in that county what what kind of solutions are needed in this county in that county while in some in some counties we'll need to solve issues around water in some counties we are we are solving issues in the opposite direction some countries will struggle with being dry others will struggle with you know with too much rain so how you know how are we going to solve issues around this so that that would be my suggestion we can set up systems within the counties all right there are groups already that exist that are are are acting around certain problems are occurring get this to them fund these groups so that this action can be taken and if you are wondering how you do your civic education these same groups provide you with all of that so you don't have to start setting up new government funds for let's educate people about what we're doing and this is important because even if say you part of this I know people will think about tree planting. This country happens to have a lot of tree planting but not enough tree growing. The reason sometimes we don't have tree growing is because we plant trees, hashtag social media, green initiative, saving the planet one tree at a time but it is one tree at a time for one day and we are gone. No one watches over those trees and sometimes especially if you're doing it in an area you do not live in, no one watches so if you could have people who are living there educated on why it's important because there are people who just keep seeing you growing trees they don't understand why. There was a whole national holiday where we spent time growing trees. Yes not planting. Okay planting trees sorry not growing planting trees but some people have some people have not watered a single tree since so those were trees that were just planted but they'll not grow and if we're going to solve things and the issue of trees is just one there's so much more when it comes to climate that we can discuss but if we're going to really provide solutions the people who are handling these things need to get that education so counties, systems, local groups. So devolution is on the right track. There's a difference between one thing we have to be very careful is when it comes to the international community it is very easy for them to pledge they are going to give money when the pari agreement the one that is that now all the focus is on that based all the climate because you see like for us to have COP it had to have the UNFCC in 1992 after that we had the Kyoto Protocol then now we have the pari agreement of 2015 under that developed nations committed they're going to give 100 billion dollars each year to the global south countries for them to adapt to the climatic the change in climatic conditions but you know that not even a single shilling has been given since then so are we sure that this 4.6 billion dollars that has been promised to Kenya is going to be given because we have this culture in the international community of making pledges but they don't give the funds and another problem is let's say even if they give the funds we know that in Africa we have always had this problem of debt or aid doesn't get to the people whom it deserves and it's called there's a book that Dambisa Moyr wrote a Zambian intelligent order she wrote about dead aid so the whole idea was since since 1960 when the first country african country got independence what's around two trillion dollars has been given in aid but not even one percent of that got to the people it deserved so for example if we go to kybera today how much aid has been given you said aid and kyberos the first place because money has been pumped into that place organizations have been set up and and hey everybody should be driving a book everyone but unfortunately that is not the case so another thing is we have to ensure we have to change this framework the international financing framework to ensure that whenever money is released it gets to the people it deserves because we know that for example that's 680 billion it's a either going to be given to the government or it's going to be given to organizations that are already international organizations they are not kenyan organizations so that money is not going to a kenyan interpreter is not going to a kenyan young person it's not going to a kenyan woman in the village so that money still remains within themselves or if it's going to be given to the government again it comes with the condition that the government has to work with one of those organizations in implementing the project so the money never gets to the real real person on the ground so again that is another thing when you talk about the money we have to ensure it becomes part of the conversation yes all right thank you but i i really could go on and on and on with both of you you're just either we're debating or you're pumping with knowledge either way it's very refreshing this morning morning and i appreciate it but brian and elijah i think we have to stop it at here guys i might have to release them but trust and believe me mean a green bons i found money guys i found the gold i found the gold all right thank you again so much for coming maybe just one more time tell us who you are and what you do in seconds not not many uh-huh elijah so elijah bercurry operations and research police action initiative and brian brian kithingi executive director police action initiative all right thank you valentino boy at color me val for y254 thank you so very much for allowing me to host you guys as always always always such a supreme pleasure and love spending time with you even though i cannot see you i can feel you i can feel your presence at y254 facebook y254 channel on x y254 underscore channel on the grab and now brian asakwa 101 is about to come in with a conversation talking about safe festivities or how best to face the festive season safely i don't know come on yeah you understand you understand in a sentence how do you advise people to safely enjoy the first the first of season yeah don't drink and drive simple wise man that was my exact thought that just that's it especially that and please whenever you're going out or staying in always have akili with you like don't leave it at home i think that's it for now bye bye