President William Ruto on Wednesday, June 21, flew to Paris, France, to attend the Global Pact Finance Summit.
A statement signed by State House Spokesperson Hussein Mohamed indicated that leaders attending the Summit will seek to foster the creation of an inclusive financial architecture driven towards climate action.
Ruto, a strong advocate for climate change discussions, noted that the platform would be vital in proposing sustainable financial measures aimed at solving the adverse effects of climate change.
"The President considers the Summit a critical platform to make bold proposals towards the establishment of a new Multilateral Climate Finance Institutional Architecture.
"Kenya, Africa, and the Global South at large continue to face significant adverse effects of climate change despite contributing the least to global warming and having the lowest emissions," the statement read in part.
The platforms also seek to shift the discussions to a more positive approach - where the global leaders will be accorded the opportunity to dialogue about investment opportunities that arise from the effects of climate change.
"In recent years, climate change discussions have primarily focused on loss and damage, strongly anchored around the ideologies of blame, victimhood, aid and reparations, neglecting the important dialogue about opportunities, investments and trade that would showcase Africa's abundant endowments of hydro, wind, solar, and geothermal energy sources, as well as essential transition minerals," Mohamed stated.
President Ruto will seek to underscore the urgent need to move beyond incremental measures that fall short of effectively combating the climate crisis and subsequently fail to generate investment benefits for Africa.
Kenya's contribution to the summit will rubberstamp Africa's position that will be evinced during the Africa Climate Summit scheduled to take place from September 4, 2023, to September 6, 2023, in Nairobi.
The trip came amidst criticism that the President outspent his predecessor's expenses on travel.
Reports indicated that Ruto had spent Ksh2.369 billion for expenses such as fuel, hospitality and maintenance of motor vehicles alone for the period between October 2022 and March 2023.
This represented three times more than former President Uhuru Kenyatta's Ksh852 million during the same period.
In his defense, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua argued that the media ought to focus on the gains derived from the trips.
"I found another headline saying that for the time you have been in office, you (Ruto) have spent three times what your predecessors spent on local and international travel but these people were not honest and objective enough to also outline the level of activities you have carried out in that period because the cost is determined by the level of activity," he stated.
