President William Ruto of Kenya recently traveled to Germany to discuss the need for investment in the African country's renewable energy sector in order to combat climate change.
However, addressing the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue (BETD), an international forum for key energy sector stakeholders, policymakers and other representatives, Ruto also laced into Western countries for pushing poor African nations away from fossil fuels without providing adequate financial resources for developing renewable energy.
“If we want to have a real chance at addressing the climate crisis, then we will need to rise to the challenge of genuine partnership,” he said. "This means not pushing Africa further into the past and further into fossil fuel locking while failing to invest in real transition pathways towards a better brighter and cleaner future."
President Ruto believes that climate change is a real problem that needs to be tackled, but the West has made it look like a poor man's problem.
According to the Kenyan president, the spread of renewable energy in Africa is lagging behind due to the challenges associated with obtaining funding for their expansion. The general issue of obtaining whatever electricity that is accessible is another issue, he noted. This implies that African nations may rely on their own resources, even the widely reviled fossil fuels.
Ruto argued that African countries should be allowed to use their own resources, including fossil fuels, while transitioning to cleaner energy. He also emphasized the need for genuine partnership and investment to address climate change and achieve an environmentally responsible global energy transition.
"Today in Africa, we face multiple intertwined crises. We are the continent most vulnerable to climate change and its impacts, yet least responsible for the climate change crisis. In addition, we have the least energy access with over 600 million Africans still without access to energy and of course, we are still carrying the scars of colonialism as well as economic and institutional dependencies that followed it," Ruto stated.
He further argued that richer countries need to invest in Africa's assets and its ability to make technological quantum leaps, thereby turning the continent and Kenya, in particular, into a critical partner, to navigate the next era of energy transition.
In a separate topic, while in Berlin, Ruto said during an interview with the German press that no foreign country should impose the ideology of LGBTQ on his nation.
"We cannot dictate to Germans, Americans, French or Ugandans on what they want to do. That is theirs to choose. As a country, we have taken a position informed by our culture, our tradition, our constitution, and laws," Ruto said in the interview. "We have no issue with people celebrating their issues, in America and in other countries, for that is their choosing."
The president stressed that in Kenya, the "only understanding of relationships around marriage is around men marrying women. That's the context of a relationship that exists in Kenya and in our constitution."
Speaking of neighboring Uganda, the East African country’s parliament passed a bill in March that proposes new penalties for homosexual intercourse and criminalizes anyone identifying as LGBTQ. According to the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill, those who identify as LGBTQ+ or engage in same-sex activity can face up to ten years behind bars, and those who commit "aggravated homosexuality", which among other things applies in cases of sexual relations involving those infected with HIV and underage minors, may face capital punishment.