The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has lauded Kenya and the globe while celebrating the end of leaded fuel production.
Speaking to National Geographic on Wednesday, September 1, UNEP Program Officer for sustainable mobility Jane Akumu noted that Algeria, the only country worldwide which was still producing leaded fuel, had finally stopped the production.
According to experts, the product was harmful to human health. It has adverse effects, including causing cancer and damage to brain development in children.
Other effects of the products include the destruction of "the motor, cognitive, hepatic, kidney, visual systems. Anything you think of, it can destroy it.”
During the event, Rob de Jong, head of UNEP’s sustainable mobility unit, noted that Kenya played a big role in the eradication of leaded fuel.
At the time, some countries and companies had grown more resistance to the adoption of unleaded fuel arguing that lleaded fuel had more advantages in preserving the car's engine.
To try and curb the use, UNEP targeted countries that did not have refineries to import unleaded fuel from countries that had set up refineries.
One of those countries was Kenya, which would supply to her neighbours like Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania.
“So rather than going to Kenya and saying, ‘You have to invest in the refinery,’ we went to neighbouring Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and said, ‘You could just as well buy unleaded stuff. It is much healthier,’” noted de Jong.
The neighbouring countries demanded the unleaded fuel, failure to which they threatened to import from other countries forcing the supplying countries to adapt.
UNEP later used the same peer pressure in other regions, where it showed countries that their neighbours had adapted healthier fuels hence alienating them.
“Ministers would say, ‘Why are we still red on this map? And everyone around us is blue," added de Jong.
At the time, UNEP also partnered in training pump attendants, which resulted in blood testing across Kenya, Hungary, Serbia and Ghana.
The study later showed that lead levels in blood decreased significantly when lead was removed from fuels.
Progress was realised quickly and by 2016, only three countries had remained with a stockpile of unleaded fuel, Algeria, Yemen, and Iraq.
UNEP estimates that with the end of the last stockpile in Algeria, the continent will save 1.2 million deaths and roll back on unnecessary health complications valued at Ksh240 trillion.
