Climate change actors have launched an innovative programme “Voices for Just Climate Action” to amplify marginalized voices to curb deteriorating weather patterns.
The actors, while launching the programme in Kitui on Monday, told KNA that the ongoing global climate crisis is a collective societal challenge whose devastating effects have led to the growing economic inequalities across communities and among nations.
“The programme aims to ensure that by 2025, local civil society and underrepresented groups will have taken on central roles as creators, facilitators and advocates of innovative and inclusive climate solutions to address climate change issues,” said Stella Agara, Economic Justice and Climate Action Lead at Akina Mama wa Afrika.
Agara noted that the country has experienced considerable negative changes in weather patterns due to the change in climate that has affected farmers’ livelihoods and exacerbated poverty levels in rural areas.
“The emission of greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon has altered the ozone layer in a negative way by preventing the excess heat to leave the earth,” she said.
The climate change expert observed that these emissions cause global warming which is evident through the existing environmental changes such as increase in sea levels due to the melting glacier as well as the harsh climatic seasons.
“Various approaches have been initiated to address the effects created by climate change, and ultimately, steps to reduce carbon emissions in a bid to forestall environment degradation and pollution,” she pointed out.
The Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) programme is a lobby and advocacy programme implemented by the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Netherlands, SouthSouthNorth (SSN), Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), Slum Dwellers International (SDI) and Hivos.
“The inclusion of these actors is crucial for effective and lasting climate responses, and because the climate crisis is also a societal challenge with ethical and human rights aspects occurring alongside a number of inequalities based on gender, socioeconomic class, race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexual orientation and age,” noted Agara.
She disclosed that the overall approach of the programme is to work with civil society to build widespread societal support for locally-shaped climate solutions through an inclusive and rights-based approach.
“This includes building a broad-based climate alliance at the country level, bridging divides among urban-rural, gender, youth that amplifies voices in new and unusual ways,” said the Climate Action Lead.
In addition, Agara said that the programme will influence national and global policies and financial flows such as climate finance and private sector investments in support of these locally shaped solutions.
By Yobesh Onwong’a
