Kenya Gambles On Dirty Energy With Its First Coal Plant

Mohammed Hassan is a worried man. In a few months’ time, the place he has called home for 27 years may be unrecognizable. Even scarier, he says, his newborn child may not enjoy the same little pleasures of life he did while growing up.

The clear skies, the endless supplies of fresh fish and the midday plunge into the sky blue ocean from one of the many jetties along Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline may all be part of a painful past for generations that come after him.

In a bid to maintain its dominance as one of East Africa’s biggest and most ambitious economies, Kenya is betting big on dirty energy by building a controversial Chinese-funded coal plant at a World Heritage site.

“If these plans go on, maybe we might just have to move away,” Hassan said, his gaze first falling on the beach front, then farther west toward a cluster of mangrove trees behind which the sun, a big ball of orange, is lazily disappearing before a starlit night takes over. Read the full article here