In recent years, the Kenyan government has asserted its leadership in global climate forums, where Kenya’s president has rightly called on the world to do more to support Africa’s response to climate change.
However, domestic climate action is also crucial. If climate change is truly a domestic priority, we should see growing financing for climate in the government’s budget. Tackling climate change entails a suite of investments to extend energy access, reduce emissions, and protect the population from escalating natural disasters, such as flood and drought.
Yet while the government has talked about the importance of climate finance, it has not sufficiently prioritized domestic finance. The Kenyan government is far behind on its targets for climate adaptation spending, and Kenya’s 2025 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement shifts the focus in the wrong direction, back toward climate mitigation.
Although legislation was introduced to create a national Climate Change Fund nearly a decade ago, there is still no fund and climate expenditures remain fragmented across the budget, making it hard to identify and track them. Meanwhile, at the county level, though climate funds have spread, they are opaque and, on available data, do not regularly engage communities in planning for climate adaptation.
Tackling these challenges means building coalitions and mobilizing citizens to put pressure on government to take climate finance seriously.