A solution for Kenya’s pollution on Clean Air Day 2022
It feels fitting to be writing about clean air from a warehouse in Nairobi’s industrial area. Nairobi is at the heart of a country filled with immense natural beauty, vast open spaces, and 23 National Parks - including one in the capital itself. Nairobi is also a city characterised by industry, entrepreneurial spirit, and patently obvious pollution.
I would wager that anyone who has lived in Nairobi has had the displeasure of being engulfed in black smog from a zealous Matatu accelerating past a pedestrian area. Or been spat at through the exhaust fume of a heavy goods vehicle while riding on the back of a boda boda.
Although these incidents and stories might provide some blushes for the recipient of the smoke attack, and some light humour for anyone accompanying them who was lucky enough to escape, the results of pumping out harmful Greenhouse Gases have acute and lasting impacts to the residents of Nairobi.?
A cough has become synonymous with the world’s most loathed recurring news topic - COVID-19 - though even prior to the pandemic, respiratory illnesses have been rife, forming 25% of reported disease incidence in Kenya’s public health facilities. This disproportionately affects lower income families, who cannot afford the luxury of houses in the tree-lined streets of Gigiri, or Runda, or Karen, and are instead subjected to living and working in heavily polluted areas and informal settlements. Children are tragically very vulnerable to respiratory diseases, with pneumonia accounting for 16% of annual deaths for Kenyans under the age of 5. Children with Malaria and HIV are exponentially more susceptible to Pneumonia and other respiratory diseases, further widening the health gap between the affluent and the less fortunate.
Defendants of cars (‘petrolhead’ a very apt nickname in the context of the aforementioned health challenges) may point towards things such as catalytic converters as mitigating the emissions produced by Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles. In Kenya, 60% of registered cars do not have this device, and those that do are subjected to theft due to the palladium, platinum, and rhodium contained in the converters. These are often broken down and sold on the black market, reducing the number of converters in circulation. Many of the vehicles are second-hand Japanese imports, and have a much lower fuel-efficiency than new vehicles. The solution for Kenya and the world clearly does not lie with 4-wheelers, or ICE vehicles at all - catalytic converters are a good case study of papering over cracks in the pollution crisis without solving it effectively.
But there is hope - Environment and Forestry CS Keriako Tobiko proudly announced during COP26 in October 2021 that ‘Kenya is one of the first countries to sign, ratify and domesticate the Paris Agreement’, and that the country is an ‘African leader in the area of renewable energy… doing better than most of these developed countries’ . His comments are in many ways correct; Kenya’s renewable energy mix broke the 90% barrier in 2019, following the purchase of a 50MW solar plant, to supplement the excellent hydroelectric and geothermal power already supplying the grid. And it is true that Kenya’s inclusion in EY’s Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI) is unprecedented in sub-Saharan Africa. However, in spite of these successes, Kenya’s transport sector accounted for 52.9% of the country’s CO2 emissions in 2014 - a figure that has likely grown with the introduction of hundreds of thousands of ICE vehicles each year. This clearly shows a need to eliminate tailpipe emissions while continuing on the path towards a 100% renewable grid.
All of this begs the question: how do we address Kenya’s clean air issues while also playing to the country’s existing clean developments?
The answer? Electric vehicles.
领英推荐
It couldn’t be more simple. Policy changes to encourage and facilitate uptake of EVs will see Kenya’s pollution dwindle into obscurity, with 0 emission vehicles being charged from a 90%+ renewable grid. This has been reported by McKinsey, showing how obtaining cost parity with ICE bikes through tax breaks and other incentives will see a reduction in cost for end-user and climate benefits without caveat. The blueprint for said incentives has also been set out by Rwanda’s excellent publication: ‘Strategic Paper for e-mobility adaptation in Rwanda’.
In Kenya it is very easy to see a country characterised by contrast; Mombasa Road and the new expressway separating Nairobi National park from the Industrial area and international airport of the city; the luscious Karura forest bordered by the destitute Deep Sea Slums; the busy tuk-tuks in Mombasa replaced by languid mules in the streets of Lamu Island. But there is a beautiful harmony in Kenya’s clean grid charging 0 emission Electric Vehicles.
International day of Clean Air for Blue Skies was declared to be 7th September by the United Nations in 2019.
Follow ARC Ride’s progress in driving the #emobilityrevolution in Africa on our media channels: