nJUST IN CASE the Minister in question under the headline, ‘Uganda Loses Sh21.5 Trillion To Climate Change’ this week was NOT talking or quoted, fwaaa, we need to go after this Climate Change and get our money back.
Like other ordinary people, I assumed immediately from that headline that she was talking about ‘Climate Change.’ Climate Change – the one we keep thinking and worrying about when it rains too much or too little.
But sh21.5trillion? Eh! About a third of our national budget of Financial year 2024/25?
Why would you not believe that Climate Change took all of that? Your only question would be: “How?”
As usual, the rest of the story offered no details of note. On the official Ministry website the section titled ‘Latest News’ offers up a story from Thursday, August 8, 2024.
How and why do news editors allow such statements to get published without questioning them? Blame climate change.
How and why do government technocrats allow their politicians to say such things in public without published evidence to back them? That’s NOT climate change. It’s a bigger problem.
Being casual about something that could be devastating for the entire economy raises questions about how serious we are about fixing the problem.
The Minister, Hon. Beatrice Anywar, reportedly said this at the launch of the Uganda Water and Environment Week – one of the most important national events under the Ministry’s docket.
Surely there is no way she could have been quoting a figure that has no clear methodology of calculation? Well, the online scientists present formulae to this and employ them for various countries.
AI apps say things like: “Calculating climate change losses involves assessing both economic (income and asset damage) and non-economic (mortality, mobility, and mental well-being) impacts; often using methods like econometric analysis, theoretical modeling (sic), or expert surveys…”
Now, if Uganda were losing a third of our annual national budget to anything, we would have to Be Serious about it right from the day the Report got published, right?
Such a story needed to be on Page One of the newspaper. That day, The New Vision led with “Panic as HIV Drugs Supply Reduces”, referring to the situation resulting from the United States freezing “aid” to our health system.
https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/report/hiv-drug-shortage-sparks-panic-as-refills-dro-NV_207162
A little bit of irony: the amount of money stolen by this thief called Climate Change is a lot more than all our “aid” combined… but we don’t seem to understand these things.
That’s clear from the way the story itself was reported, going from the Minister’s shattering statement to comments by other politicians and an Anglican Church representative.
Perhaps people like me are being impatient, and there is going to be a grand revelation of the Report calculating this loss to Climate Change in Uganda Shillings.
Maybe, dare we hope, the government is preparing severe military action against everyone who has degraded a wetland or cut down forest trees these last four decades.
Something seems to be afoot; otherwise, there is no way the Minister would have said this and then gone home in peace to serve dinner. Since the time I read the headline I have not settled down.
Sh21.5trillion? US$5.8billion? Gwe. That is a lot of money. It’s the type of money that should cause a national meeting of everybody involved – which is all 47million of you here.
https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/news/uganda-to-lose-over-sh540-trillion-to-climate-NV_184026
Climate Change is not up in the sky or out in the oceans. We are here causing it every day, not caring about emissions and air quality as we drive our jalopies; creating unmanaged waste and dumping it out into our soils and waterways; piling concrete into wetlands; and generally acting stupid.
Every day in duukas, shops, and supermarkets, we brainlessly gather plastic bags (buveera) for EVERYTHING and then drop them onto the ground. Then we will blame Climate Change or the Government or Donald Trump.
On Monday, I found a father and daughter buying five grocery items that they packed into three plastic bags. Two of the items were juice bottles – a miniature one for the infant and a small one for her father.
The fellow had a rucksack on his back with a pocket for a bottle, but still used a kaveera for his little juice.
And then, which is confoundingly normal, father and daughter opened their buveera and started drinking their juice before walking out of the shop…to a boda-boda. Do YOU think they got home with their trash or is it now in Kampala drains?
In three weeks’ time we will be sharing photos and videos of possibly that same boda-boda and its passengers being washed away by a quick flood, adding to the sh21.5 trillion losses the Minister was talking about…
Climate Change? It’s a good thing the Minister said it, but she was being too polite—no pun on ‘politician’; see, we are not losing sh21.5trilliong to Climate Change – we are losing it to stupidity.
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Thanks,
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Simon Kaheru
Jambo (Hi)! I'd be happy to hear your thoughts so…say something here?