Nairobi Shrugs Off Terrorism Fears

Nairobi, Kenya, November 05, 2006 – A security warning issued by America that Kenya could be under threat from Somali suicide bombers will not affect an international conference on climatic change set to begin in Nairobi on Monday.

The Government yesterday said security had been beefed up ahead of the meeting to be attended by 6,000 delegates – including presidents, ministers, and UN officials.

Prof Kivutha Kibwana

Environment minister Prof Kivutha Kibwana said there was no cause for alarm, adding that the US government, which issued the alert, will be sending 67 delegates to the meeting.

Prof Kibwana said: "As the ministry in charge of the conference, we have not received any security alert from the relevant section in government ... America, which gave the warning, is sending the highest number of delegates to the conference."

He was addressing a press conference in his office on the preparations of the historical meeting.

The warning by the US State Department cautioned that extremist elements could execute suicide explosions on prominent landmarks in Kenya and Ethiopia.

American Ambassador Michael Ranneberger confirmed the high alert and said in Nairobi that Kenya and the US were co-operating to combat the threat posed by terrorism.

The Nairobi 2006 meeting at the UN Complex in Gigiri under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be the second meeting of parties to the Kyoto Protocol.  

The Convention is the supreme and governing body responsible for keeping international efforts to address climate change.  

Under the protocol, industrialized nations are committed to individually and collectively limit their emissions. Last year, specific targets were adopted for greenhouse gases.

Kenya is expected to highlight concerns and direct debate on the impact of climate change.

The meeting will review the achievements made, the levels of commitment among nations, and look at new scientific findings on climatic changes around the world.

The first session of the conference was held in Berlin in 1995.

The conference delegates include government representatives, representatives of non-governmental organizations, private sector players and academics. It is expected that 18 Heads of State and 130 ministers will be among the delegates to the conference.

Besides being the only developing country that hosts United Nations offices, Kenya also chairs the 7th Conference of the Parties for United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the 6th United Nations Forum and the Group of Like Minded Mega Diverse Countries parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity.

By hosting the conference, Kenya is expected to highlight concerns and direct debate on the impact of climate change and climate variability on development implications.  

The conference will also entrench Kenya as a major player in environmental governance as well as peace in the region, boost national carrier Kenya Airways which is the official carrier of delegates, and showcase Kenya as a destination of choice for tourism.  

The conference is the fourth major international event to be held in Nairobi this year after the Youth Empowerment Summit, the Africities Conference and the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference. The conferences has seen full bookings in major city hotels and has the ripple effect of positively affecting the transport and tourism sectors.

Yesterday, Prof Kibwana said that among personalities expected to address the conference are the United Nations secretary general, and Nobel laureate Prof Wangari Maathai.

He said Kenya had ratified the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the subsequent Kyoto protocol.

Kenya was also a signatory to many global conventions on environment, generally referred to as multilateral environmental agreements.

This week, a coalition of lobby groups and NGOs said that Africa should be compensated for the devastating and often fatal climatic conditions caused by industrial emissions from developed countries.

The lobby groups said that Africa should be compensated since the industrialized nations had visited untold suffering on the continent through emission of greenhouse gases which have ultimately affected weather patterns.

The industrialized nations, chiefly the US, are blamed for producing 97 per cent of the emissions with Africa producing only about three to four per cent.

Source: The Sunday Nation

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