Climate change expert laments inaction at COP29

With COP29 in its second week, delegates are no closer to agreeing to increase much-needed assistance for climate-vulnerable countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. EWN reports that a Kenyan expert on global warming has warned that politics often drowns out science. ‘If the world was listening to science, maybe we wouldn't be doing these COPs,’ Joyce Kimutai told AFP on the sidelines of this year's UN forum in Azerbaijan. ‘We are very slow in how we take our action. We are afraid of taking bold steps. And I do not understand why,’ she said. Kimutai, who has been a lead author of reports by the UN's expert climate panel understands the price of climate inaction better than most delegates. She is a specialist in attributing humanity's role in warming the planet to extreme weather, and collaborates with a global network of scientists advancing this groundbreaking research. ‘But I prefer to be based in the continent of Africa, because that is I feel that's where my expertise is required,’ said Kimutai. EWN notes that she said in the Rift Valley, landslides are becoming more frequent, seasons unreliable, and grass and water scarce for cattle. Climate change was exacting a ‘terrible’ toll in Kenya, she said, but it was no different elsewhere in Africa or other developing regions at the coalface of a warming planet. ‘They are not ready for these events,’ she added.