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Please note: This interview was recorded in a noisy environment, which may affect the clarity of the contributor's words.
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Nicholas: Okay, my name is Nicholas Maingi. I work with Kenya Meteorological Department as an Assistant Director in charge of international relations. Apart from that I’m also meteorologist, a fully trained meteorologist, so I’m involved in the weather forecasting at times and also in the teaching and lecturing in the institute in Kenya.
Presenter: Can you tell me how you first came to be engaged in environmental issues.
Nicholas: Okay, mainly it was just the idea of, my father is a farmer and having the different weather patterns and rains and all that gave me some interest, and also a few lectures we had in high school about weather and all that gave me some interest in weather forecasting. So it was something which I really wanted to do. So in the university immediately I did my first degree in General Meteorology Bachelor of Science and then I did my Masters in Tropical Meteorology.
Presenter: Climatology is a very important part of climate change science and climate change science informs policy. Do you think the Kenyan public have a good understanding of climate change?
Nicholas: I would say in the last ten years awareness has really been created because especially with the El Nino events that we had. Actually in Kenya when you talk about El Nino they think of rain. Although El Nino just enhances the rainfall pattern especially the short rain season of October, November, December rains, and in 1987, 89, when we had a serious El Nino episode it really affected Kenya. So with that we have been having quite a number of programmes with public awareness and we are engaging all the other sectors. You will find that first of all we started with the media so that when they are reporting, it used to be called scattered showers and all that but now at least what we have done, the programmes that we have had with various sectors I think now it’s really getting into them.
Presenter: And what’s the most important and most interesting piece of work you’ve been involved in recently or currently?
Nicholas: Okay, currently mainly I’m involved in numerical weather prediction modelling, and it is something that I have been doing. In fact I lecture that subject in the Institute for Meteorological Research and Training in Nairobi.
Presenter: Looking one year, five years and ten years out, can you anticipate what the milestones are going to be either for you personally or professionally but also for Kenya in terms of environmental changes?
Nicholas: Okay, one of the things is the government has realised that meteorologists are a very important sector, and they have increased their budget quite a lot, because like now one of the major projects that they have is modernisation of the meteorological department whereby now we are having more equipment. There are some other equipment which is being brought in and also we are enhancing our capability in numerical weather prediction so that we can have small scale numerical prediction.
Presenter: What confidence do you think you’re going to be able to develop in being able to predict the impact of climate change by region? Is that simply too difficult or do you think in ten years’ time you’re going to be feeling the effects?
Nicholas: I think, as I told you, the government is realising that meteorology is something important. In fact now what we are doing is we are disseminating our services more or less to the grassroots. So we will find that we are nearer to the people and having more stations there I think the prediction is bound to be better and public awareness is also bound to be better.
Presenter: My last question is apparently simple but I find it difficult to answer, where would you put yourself between optimism and pessimism facing the next ten years?
Nicholas: That’s a difficult question, I agree. Let’s say I would be an optimist because I expect with what we expect to do at least I have that vision and with the support that we are getting Met is becoming a much better subject. Before we used to be called people who would guess whether it would be yes or no, but at least now people are understanding what we really do and with time I think will appreciate the weather focus that we do.
Presenter: And in terms of the environmental issues more widely in ten years in terms of either public understanding or government action. Looking ten years out are you an optimist or a pessimist?
Nicholas: As you say it’s quite difficult deciding on which side you would say you were because they are more or less, no comment, yes that’s almost what I was going to say, yes, okay, I’d rather say no comment on that.
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