November 17, 2024
Baku, Azerbaijan

Attending COP, where politics often trumps science, can be disheartening, says Joyce Kimutai, a global warming expert in a disaster-prone African country.
“If the world listened to scientists, maybe we wouldn’t be doing these COPs,” the 36-year-old Kenyan climatologist blows to AFP on the sidelines of this year’s climate conference in Azerbaijan.
“Our action is very slow. We’re afraid to take bold action. And I don’t understand why,” she confides.
As the conference prepares to enter its second week, the countries gathered seem no closer to agreeing to increase much-needed financial aid to countries vulnerable to climate change in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
Without this money, developing countries say it will be difficult for them to switch to renewable energies and adapt to more frequent climate shocks.
The talks are going round in circles, putting a strain on those whose communities are at the mercy of increasingly random and extreme weather conditions.
“It’s really frustrating,” testifies Ms Kimutai, one of the principal authors of the IPCC, the UN’s panel of climate experts.

“I try to remain optimistic, but honestly, there are days when I wake up feeling very pessimistic, in the face of the suffering of these vulnerable communities.”
– The climate front –
Joyce Kimutai understands the cost of climate inaction better than anyone in the COP29 negotiating rooms: she is a specialist in attributing extreme weather events to human-caused warming, and collaborates with a global network of recognized scientists in this growing discipline.
“But I prefer to work on the African continent, because that’s where I feel my expertise is needed,” says Ms. Kimutai, who lives in Nairobi.
There, the climatologist is not immune to the phenomena she studies. This year, after suffering its worst drought in decades, Kenya endured downpours and floods that killed hundreds of people and destroyed roads and homes.
She recounts that it was studying the Rift Valley in her high school geography class that awakened her passion for science. Already, landslides were becoming more and more frequent there, as well as random seasons and increasingly scarce grass and water for livestock.
Climate change is imposing a “terrible” cost on Kenya, she laments, just as it is elsewhere in Africa or in other developing regions.
“They’re not ready for it,” fears Ms Kimutai.

Even rich countries will not be “spared”, she believes, pointing to the recent deadly floods in Spain.

– Humiliating” –
At COP29, Mrs Kimutai is advising the Kenyan government in its financial tug-of-war with rich countries, reluctant to increase their contributions significantly.
For Ms. Kimutai, Kenya “carries the continent” of Africa, currently leading the African negotiating group, formally recognized in the UN process.
“If you’re dealing with three or four disasters a year, you have to go and get donors four times over, asking for money. And that means you’re constantly in debt,” stresses the researcher.
Being forced to haggle to repair a problem caused by others is “humiliating”, she complains, all the more so when time is of the essence.

Humaniterre avec AFP