Kenya: Energy Development Plan to Decarbonise the Economy
The University of Technology Sydney Institute for Sustainable Futures
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Abstract: According to the Climate Action Tracker policy overview climate mitigation is not prioritised in the ‘Big Four Agenda’ of former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s, nor in the country’s Vision 2030. However, the Kenyan Government had already adopted the Climate Change Act (2016), which provides a framework for the promotion of climate-resilient low-carbon economic development. The Act mandates the government to develop a National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP) of the and update it every five years. The second and most recent NCCAP covers the period 2018-2022 and its main objective is to guide climate action during that time and support the implementation of Kenya’s NDC. Under the NCCAP, sector representatives define priority mitigation actions that are designed to ensure that sectors achieve their sectoral targets (Government of Kenya, 2018). The amendment of the Climate Change Act was introduced into the National Assembly in August 2023 and contains mainly new definitions for the carbon market including carbon credits and carbon budgets. Furthermore, the new bill forms the basis for two additional policies introduced in September 2023: Kenya’s National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP) 2023-2027 and the Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy (LT-LEDS) 2022-2050. The IEA Kenya Energy Outlook – published already in 2019, provides an overview to Kenya’s the higher-level economic targets which may conflict with the later introduced Climate Change Action Plan.