Launch remarks · 1 September 2023
• Distinguished Guests; • Good Afternoon;
Between the 4th and 6th of September, 2023, our country will have the honour of co-hosting the Africa Climate Summit with the African Union Secretariat in our capital, Nairobi. During this event, African and international leadership will gather to engage in robust deliberations with a view to making significant progress in formulating just, effective and inclusive policies to combat climate change, thereby averting a global warming apocalypse.
At the Summit, we shall revisit various international instruments and commitments at the multilateral level in order to reach an understanding on the best ways of rallying together under a new compact aimed at achieving effective climate action on an ambitious, global scale through a combination of social justice, economic transformation, unprecedented investment in a just transition to netzero, by formulating strategies for effective action and inspiring environmental and climate action leadership.
Without a doubt, the time has come for Africa to add a firm, clear voice to the global climate change discourse and to provide leadership in effective climate action as well as a new clean, green industrial revolution which delivers sustained economic transformation and shared prosperity for humanity while facilitating the rehabilitation, recovery, resurgence and resilience of the earth’s capacity to sustain life in its fullest diversity.
As I have said before, Africa is stepping forward as a united continent and one people, to lead the next phase of global development by offering its unique endowment of abundance in natural resources, youthful and highly skilled human capital and peerless green energy potential in the service of a new industrial age. We are the young, green continent of the future, and the future has arrived. Next week, we announce to the world an agenda for ensuring that humanity thrives in this future while securing the earth’s ability to support biodiversity.
The privilege to host of this momentous event underscores Kenya’s well established global green growth and climate action leadership credentials and decades-long endeavour as a champion of environmental conservation and the protection of biodiversity. Since the first decade of our independence, we have been a consistent champion of the global environmental agenda, and today, environmental diplomacy remains a critical pillar of our foreign policy.
Nairobi is the host city of the only United Nations headquarters in the Global South. The United Nations Environment Programme, the focal point of multilateral environmental policy agenda, has its home here in Kenya.
Kenya’s leadership of the global environmental sector is not accidental. Neither is it restricted to the international arena. The people of Kenya are united in categorically committed in their determination to respect and sustain the environment for present and future generations. The constitutional commitment in Article 69 (1) (a) mandates the state to ensure the sustainable exploitation, utilisation and management of the environment, while under Article 69 (1) (g) the state is further mandated to eliminate processes and activities that are likely to endanger the environment.
Further, our national economic development blueprint, Vision 2030 sets out Kenya’s ambition to transform into a newly industrialising middleincome country providing a high quality of life for all its citizens by 2030 in a clean and secure environment.
In short, a strong commitment to the environmental is an essential feature of Kenya’s national identity and a fundamental element of the national development agenda. This is why our bottom-up economic transformation agenda explicitly plugs into global environmental and climate change agenda through a bottom-up 3P agenda which commits us to attend simultaneously to the people’s well-being, the planet’s ecological vibrancy and the capacity of enterprises to generate profit sustainably.
We take our commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change very seriously. Therefore, we remain firmly on course to meet the pollution reduction targets under the Paris Agreement. We are also taking decisive steps in our shift to zero emission.
As pertains the environment, climate action and ecologically responsible industrialisation, Kenya is in it for Kenya, for Africa, and for the world. We are doing it for our citizens and for humanity. For this reason, we have designated a ministry for the Environment and Climate Change to undertake the National Climate Change Action Plan in order to facilitate the achievement of our national environmental, biodiversity and climate change imperatives, including under our nationally determined contributions.
We are committed to enhancing our climate action by adopting lowcarbon and efficient transportation systems through the application of innovations, including clean, efficient and sustainable energy technologies.
The bottom-up agenda for economic transformations identifies the adoption of electric mobility, or e-mobility, as a priority intervention to achieve the win-win outcomes of reducing green house gas emissions, providing cheaper transport and leveraging our large local and regional motorcycle market to build an electric vehicle industry.
Motorcycles comprise the fastest growing form of transport in many countries. This fact has serious implications for climate change and air quality. Our continent now faces a tremendous CO2 emissions challenge owing to its huge two-wheeler, internal combustion engine powered fleet. In many African countries, the air has a particle concentration that is well above the WHO recommendation. Ageing fleets and unsustainable technologies are to blame for this hazard.
Here in Kenya, two and three-wheeler vehicles comprise the largest share of the national fleet, at 67%. Our cities and urban areas are in danger of turning into heavily polluted and unhealthy places, placing millions of entreprising people at great risk. It has been clear for some time now that something must be done about this, and today, we are doing it.
The adoption of electric mobility is a high-priority intervention to address the challenges of pollution, adverse health effects and fuel costs which raise the cost of living. Successful transition to E-mobility requires a fundamental reconfiguration of our transportation system through electrification and the provision of every necessary services and infrastructures throughout the ecosystem.
Fortunately, Kenya is well ahead in laying down the foundations of this shift. We are a global leader in the production of clean, green energy. Over 90% of the power in our national grid is generated from renewable sources, and there remains potential to produce much more in the future through wind, solar and geothermal generation.
In order to achieve its intended aims, transition to e-mobility therefore calls for intensive investment, which is best undertaken by the private sector. Accordingly, through the bottom-up economic transformation agenda, we have developed a compelling package of incentives to attract serious investors in e-mobility to stake their capital on opportunities in our green growth agenda. The effort is bearing fruit.
This is why I am delighted to preside over the launch of the Africa Smart Mobility Solutions Kenya Limited by SPIRO, an e-mobility giant with a track record of success stories in the electric vehicle industry, whose footprint spreads as far as Benin, Togo and Rwanda.
SMS Kenya has a well-earned reputation for innovative battery swapping technologies and motorcycles customised to serve the African market needs. Through their revolutionary approaches, they have saved our continent over 4000 tons of carbon emissions, thereby providing a cleaner, greener alternative to traditional tansportation.
In Kenya, SPIRO has established a high-tech electric motorcycle and battery manufacturing plant here in Dongo Kundu, with capacity to assemble 1,000 e-bikes daily.
SPIRO’s investment in Kenya affirms our commitment to facilitate a transition to e-mobility and sustainability in transportation. It also creates jobs and transfers technology, knowledge and skills to our market. In short, the investment is fully aligned with our bottom-up economic tansformation agenda.
SPIRO is also good news for our bodaboda industry. As I promised on Madaraka Day, the electric bodaboda, with all its benefits, is here. As Kenya’s hard working, all-weather providers of lastmile transportation for people and cargo, you are this nation’s unsung heroes and a pillar of the Hustler Nation. You deserve recognition and support from everyone, especially your government.
I assure bodaboda operators that that the transition will significantly enhance your overall well-being, especially pocket-wise. Electric bikes are cheaper to run than their petrol counterparts by far. When the sufficient battery charging infrastructure has been established and a critical mass of e-bikes reached, government will phase out motorcycles powered by internal combustion engines in the short term, with view to abolishing their importation altogether.
To SPIRO, I welcome you once again to Kenya, and congratulate you on your achievement. I also encourage you to lead other players in investing in the vast opportunities created by our endeavour to transition into sustainable technologies as part of the transition demanded by climate action. I also urge more players to join SPIRO and deliver value and sustainability to our bodaboda operators and every other Kenyan. The National E-mobility Programme is now officially launched. Thank you. God bless you. God bless Kenya.