The Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Ahmed Idris has said discussions around climate change should not be reduced to either mitigation or adaptation.
In an interview on Thursday at Citizen TV, Idris said they are equally important.
“We should refuse to allow this discussion to be an either-or question. Mitigation is important. Adaptation is important,” Idris said.
“More resources need to be made available for local communities to adapt and to mitigate, but more importantly, the global structure needs to be for greater commitment to reduce emissions so as to reach the targets on global warming."
Kenya hosted a five-day Africa Climate summit at the KICC which was officially opened by President William Ruto on Monday.
The summit attracted over 20,000 participants from across the globe who have been registered and accredited.
The Africa Climate Summit was expected to provide an opportunity for African leaders to support big ideas that drive climate resilience, adaptation and mitigation efforts.
Nazanine Moshiri, a senior analyst on climate, environment and conflict at Africa at Crisis Group said the resolutions missed out on how the declaration will be adapted.
She said despite many participants emphasising the need to help fragile or conflict-affected states adapt to weather extremes, the funding aspect of the adaptation was largely omitted.
"Africa needs more than $570 billion (Sh83 billion) in adaptation finance over the period 2020–2030, but at the moment the continent is receiving about 10 to 20 per cent of those needs," she said.
Moshiri further acknowledged that whereas climate financing was canvassed at large during the summit, the declaration failed to address the link between climate, peace and security.
"Many communities bearing the brunt of increasing floods and droughts, while also at risk of conflict, are disappointed that there wasn’t more emphasis on ensuring that green investments trickle down to them," she said.