26 August 2008
editorial
Nairobi — It is apt that a key world meeting on climate change and food security attended by 150 legislators from 15 countries in Africa and Europe as well as Japan should be held in Kenya.
The meeting, which is supposed to deal with the effect of global warming on food availability, is especially important at a time when food shortages and runaway costs have made the lives of many miserable all over the world.
The meeting is particularly appropriate because a definite link has been established between deforestation, destruction of water catchments and wetlands, and climate change as manifested in unpredictable weather patterns, scarcity of rain and dwindling harvests. All these have happened in Kenya.
The legislators will also exchange ideas on why donor aid has made no appreciable impact more than 40 years after it came to be treated like the panacea for uplifting the rest of the world from poverty.
While we would not wish to second-guess the speakers and the message they will deliver, we still would point out that all these issues are vital for the developing countries.
After all, the meeting is the best venue for legislators, who formulate policy and make laws, to seek to decrease global warming, thus ensuring food self-sufficiency.
If they come up with clear answers, then the meeting will have achieved its purpose.
Our hope is that it will not turn into just another talking shop in which unworkable solutions are offered and promptly forgotten by everyone.
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