Kenya has unveiled the first draft of a new National Environment Policy that seeks to strengthen environmental governance, address growing climate risks and position the environment sector as a driver of economic growth.
Principal Secretary for Environment and Climate Change Dr. Eng. Festus Ng’eno launched the draft on October 1, 2026, in Nairobi, urging Kenyans to actively participate in shaping the policy before its final adoption.
Ng’eno said the review was necessary because the existing policy, developed 13 years ago, had been overtaken by major changes in Kenya’s environmental and climate landscape.
“When this country last wrote its Environment Policy, County Governments had barely begun to exist, there was no Paris Agreement, Climate Change Act, legal framework on carbon markets and Sustainable Waste Management Act,” he said.
The draft seeks to align environmental governance with the Constitution while strengthening cooperation between the national government and the counties.
It also addresses emerging challenges including climate-driven changes such as rising lakes in the Rift Valley, waste management, environmental data, artificial intelligence, nature-based solutions and the rights of nature.
The policy supports Kenya’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35 per cent by 2035 and increase the proportion of land under protection from the current 14 per cent to 30 per cent.
Ng’eno said environmental protection must remain central to Kenya’s development beyond Vision 2030, noting that agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and cities all depend on healthy ecosystems.
UNDP Resident Representative in Kenya Jean-Luc Stalon described it as a framework for determining how Kenya grows its economy, manages natural resources and builds resilience.
Stalon warned that climate change was already carrying a heavy economic cost, with climate variability estimated to cost Kenya between three and five per cent of its GDP every year. “Without sustained action,” he said, “climate change could reduce real GDP by up to 7.25 per cent by 2050 and push an additional 1.1 million people into poverty.”
He said Kenya must not view environmental protection and economic development as competing priorities. “The challenge, therefore, is not choosing between development and the environment, but ensuring that one sustains the other.”
Stalon said there was need for the policy to strengthen the role of counties and communities in developing environmental solutions while maintaining national coordination, adding that to turn the environmental transition into an economic opportunity.
The draft policy will now undergo stakeholder and public participation before validation and finalisation. The Ministry aims to complete the review by December 12, 2026. Ng’eno urged Kenyans to take part in the process, saying the policy must carry the voices of the people it is intended to serve.
One of the significant developments in the policy review is the greater attention being given to climate finance and carbon markets. It also reflects the growing importance of the circular economy, including waste management, resource efficiency and plastics.
Biodiversity and natural-resource management are another major component of the review with the aim of addressing forests, wetlands, land degradation, biodiversity and other ecosystems alongside emerging areas such as the blue economy and nature-based solutions. This widens the scope of environmental policy beyond pollution control.
Devolution is another fundamental change that the new policy seeks to accommodate. The 2013 policy was developed before Kenya’s devolved system had matured. Under the revie draft, environmental functions are now distributed across national and county institutions, creating a need for clearer coordination and responsibilities. This is expected to strengthen the integration of environmental considerations into both national and county development planning.
The review has also brought several newer environmental questions into the policy discussion. These include loss and damage, just transition, nature-based solutions, environmental data governance, artificial intelligence, rights of nature and ecocide, alongside carbon markets and climate finance. Their inclusion reflects the rapid expansion of environmental policy since 2013.
The review further addresses environmental data and artificial intelligence (AI), pointing to a changing environmental-governance environment in which satellite information, early-warning systems, digital reporting and other technologies are becoming increasingly important.
Another fundamental change in the review is the attempt to make environmental considerations part of development decisions rather than treating environmental management as a separate regulatory function.
