Tuesday, February 17, 2009

UNEP - Kick The Hypocrisy!

So, everyone appears to be taking our planet in peril very seriously. And hands down to all these chaps who according to today's Nation, "started a meeting in Nairobi on Monday amid calls for a “new global green deal” – an ambitious initiative that would see the creation of more jobs, eradication of poverty while averting climate-related disasters. The high level meeting, attended by delegates from more than 140 countries at the United Nations Environmental Programme headquarters in Gigiri, comes hot on the heels of the global challenges facing various countries including food shortages and the financial crisis."

Things must be very serious for our dear President to take time off from sorting out who stole the maize and why no one wants to go to court for murdering lots of Kenyans and all the rest of those very important matters.

Mr. Kibaki has clearly done his homework. In his opening remarks he says, “We need to move towards a green and low carbon economy, for this will deliver multiple benefits and ultimately result in achieving sustainable development that benefits all.”

"Low Carbon Economy"

What sort of vehicles do you think these 140 important people rocked up to the meeting in? Perhaps one of these?


No, doubt our Very Important People's Government of Kenyan wanted to make sure they can live up to the very high standards set by the United Nations. And of course we all know that there is no shortage of fancy cars donated by Kenyan citizens the GoK. Between January 2003 and September 2004, President Mwai Kibaki's government spent at least Kshs 878 million in the purchase of luxury cars that were largely for the personal use of senior government officials such as ministers, assistant ministers and permanent secretaries. So which one do you think he might have used for this very important meeting? Could it have been this one?


Silly Sukuma!! Do you think such important people have time to worry about such trivial issues?? I mean even some of their senior staff told you that they have much more important things to be concerned about. It is for minions to start ensuring that we stop using electric alarm clocks and drive fuel efficient cars. As busy as they are, they still took the time to write to me and assure me that they are very very busy being fuel efficient. The UNEP spokesperson personally wrote to me to remind me, "You may also be pleased to know that, as a result of donor countries re-newed confidence in the organization and the leadership of Achim Steiner and the previous ED, Klaus Toepfer, as well as a recognition that we are doing an increasingly quality global job+ the urgent important of addressing environmental degradation, funding for UNEP is rising at a time when cuts are being registered in many other UN agencies and national environment ministeries."

In fact this very important spokesman was so friendly that he offered me a personal invitation to Dandora Dumpsite and also suggested, "that you can give me some tips on how the hell I stop black smoke pouring out the back of my elderly 1992 Land Cruiser."

He was even kind enough to send me their very important strategies for greening UNEP. I was really confused about this because I would have thought getting rid of his smoking landcruiser might be the easiest and cheapest starting point to greening UNEP...anyways, I haven't quite put my head around all this stuff yet, so I beg your forgiveness.

Silly Sukuma!! Didn't you read?? These guys have much more important things to solve! Wall Street is dragging us all into the dumps right now and our good man Obama is trying to do everything he can to stop the poorer getting poorer. He even told those naughty CEOs that there will be no more hefty salaries for them! Do you think President Kibaki might do the same or at least make those naughty MPs pay taxes?

Mr. Steiner is a very clever man and he knows that as the big guns get ready to pour money into the economy and stimulate Americans to BUY BUY BUY, we need to be very cautious: “It is the manner in which such funds are invested that will have a direct bearing on mitigating other environment and development challenges.”
Such funds are invested...

Mr. Steiner, how much do you think this meeting cost? What was the value of cars parked outside your office yesterday? How much of that was tax payers money? How much of that cash was meant for him:
You know as well as I do, WHY we have a food crises in Kenya. You know as well as I do how easily it could have been avoided and you know as well as I do that charity starts at home!! Everyone is busy intellectualising about saving the planet and you are standing there with the very people who are the cause of 10 million Kenyans facing starvation. You also know that your staff for the most of it don't really care about reducing their own carbon emmissions and reducing unnecessary waste of hard earned cash that could be used to really address issues. How can you stand there with my shameful government and intellectualise about droughts and CO2 gases when they are the ones who have stolen our maize?? Why are you all so busy pussy footing around the real issues?

I have a lot of respect for you Mr. Achim Steiner and I really hope you might follow in the footsteps of a handful of humans that know that the first step to addressing any problem is to start dealing with the hypocrisy and get the log out of our own asses...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps such meetings should have a shuttle service for all who attend, that way you reduce the number of individual vehicles that need to be used for transport. I wonder how that would go down. If GK and UNEP want to preach about creating a greener Kenya the logical 1st step would be to take the initiative and set an example? But i guess things don't work logically here in Kenya. I still don't understand why the government thinks it is above the civil society, my understanding of governments was that they were around to serve the people not the other way around. I hope your words carry into the core of Kenya Dipesh and start waves of positive reactions from everyone.

Sukuma Kenya said...

Thanks for this. If only they could think things through. I have just been informed by somebody in the big castle that, "there are so many cars in the UN compound as a result of this meeting that people are actually parking on the carefully manicured lawns as the parking spaces are not enough."

This is the way we do things in Kenya...

Anonymous said...

Sukuma, don't you remember that our dear leaders run their 4x4s on rainbows and unicorns? There's no pollution going on there! After all, it would be thoroughly hypocritical of them to burn so much fuel on their way to a conference on green issues.

And of course they all have to be in the same space! Video-conferencing and telecommuting are just soooo impersonal. These high-level talks require high-level backslapping and self-congratulation. It's very difficult to look smug and self-satisfied on a small screen.

We shouldn't be too harsh on the poor politicians. Every time we criticise them, a kitten dies.

Jonas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jonas said...

The green and sustainable talk is just BS.

In order to reduce your personal impact on the global warming the two most efficient ways (I think they count for 40% of Methan gas and Carbonmonoxide exhaust) is to stop eating meat completely and stop using plane as your transport (and travel less).

In the bigger picture it is all about our growing population and I do not see any government in the world doing anything to reduce the number of children being born (should be at the most one per adult).

Kibaki seems to eat a lot of meat and spends a lot more time in the air than the average upper Nairobi middle class guy.

Not sure how many children he has though but I am quite sure it is more than two ... running a "Will you be able to pay for your children's school fees?" or similar campaign on NTV would do a lot more than ecological resorts on the coast ...

Anonymous said...

that is soooooo sad

wish i could do something

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