Human rights, climate change, and climate policies in Kenya

The study shows how negative impacts of climate change and climate policies threaten basic human rights of the local population, in particular the six villages that were selected for documentation.

Many of the violations of human rights to water, housing and food in the Tana Delta have been found to be due to Kenya’s inherited colonial-like land regulations of the past, which vested the command over natural resources on state and trust land in the hands of the central government and county councils, respectively, without much control by the public or parliament.

The communities affected by agrofuel expansion call for a rights-based approach to development which considers and consults them, and claims to undo past land injustice.

The consulted communities underestimate the problems of local and global climate and environmental change assuming that resolving the land problem, which moves and affects them so deeply, would solve all the resource problems they face. It is, however, an indispensable precondition for improving their human rights situation and their prospects for a sustainable livelihood.

The adoption of the new constitution in August 2010 has the potential to change the situation of Tana Delta inhabitants and other Kenyans, with hoped-for positive repercussions for the respect of human rights by state organs and officials.

Taking into account the voices of the focus groups considered and the processes of legal reform under way in Kenya, the assessment of the impacts of climate change and agrofuel policies on the human rights of Tana Delta’s residents concludes with concrete recommendations both to the Kenyan government and the international community.