Climate Change and How this Environmental Challenge is Affecting Africa
By Sam Abuya
In his publication with the Financial Times titled “Climate change is the apartheid of our time” , the Archbishop emeritus and Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu equated climate change to apartheid that hit South Africa for many years. He said, ”apartheid became a global enemy; now it is climate change’s turn”.
There is no doubt that climate change has adversely affected sustainable progress globally affecting many areas including but not limited to ecosystems, coastal zones, human growth, food, water resources, health and industrial activities to mention a few.
Several studies have indicated that climate change has the potential to reverse a lot of the progress which has been achieved in relation to attaining the Millennium Development Goals (SDGs) around the world, and Africa is not an exception. If anything, actually, Africa is among the continents that have been hit hard by climate change with its effects hitting the economies, human lives and the environment.
Case studies: Kenya and Nigeria
Kenya is already feeling the heat as far as the effects of climate change are concerned. The recurrent floods, extended droughts seasons, and unpredictable weather patterns attest to this fact. People have very few coping mechanisms to cushion themselves against these effects. For instance, the overreliance on rain-fed agriculture, dependence on natural resources which are equally affected, poor housing and few resource reserves make the lives of people in this East African country hard.
Warming water surfaces and deep water temperatures of Lake Victoria, coral bleach seen along the Indian Ocean as well at the Red Sea have been termed as evidence of climate change effects in the East Africa region.
In West Africa, the climate has been changing as well with increasing temperatures, rising sea level, variable rainfall and flooding, prolonged drought seasons and desertification, and land degradation have been cited as evidence of climate change. These effects have been recorded in Nigeria. The droughts, in particular, are expected to even continue in northern Nigeria thanks to falling precipitation and increase in temperatures.
Lake Chad and other water bodies in the region are drying up and are said to be facing the risk of disappearing thanks to climate change.
In general, the continent of Africa is considered to be more vulnerable to climate change effects than any other region in the world, something which hugely attributed to lack institutional, technological and financial capacity to fight it.
The following are just a few of the many ways in which climate change is already having a toll on Africa
- Impact on the ecosystem
Climate change has already affected the freshwater bodies and ecosystems in the eastern and southern parts of Africa. The terrestrial ecosystem along the southern and western Africa has not been spared either. This has also led to a change in the animals’ migration patterns, and geographical range as well.
2. Impact on weather patterns
Long gone are the days when people were so sure of weather patterns and they could correctly predict the seasons. Nowadays, several countries across the continent are hit with unpredictable floods and droughts.
In 2001, for instance, more than 800 people lost their lives during a flooding in northern Algeria in what has remained to be one of the worst incidents of flooding in Africa. The economic loss due to the flood was pegged at $400 million.
Between the end of 2011 and mid 2012, East Africa was hit with the worst ever drought in the region in a period of 60 years. Several lives and animals were lost.
3. Impact on the supply of water
Drying up of water bodies, change in the rainfall distribution patterns; melting glaciers, flooding and droughts are just a few of the observable effects of climate change on water resources across Africa. For example, river Niger, which many people in Mali depend on for food and water as well as transport, is currently facing environmental devastation due to pollution.
The glaciers at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, on the other hand, are slowly but surely disappearing.
4. Impact on food and agriculture
One effect of climate change in Africa literally leads to the other. Droughts and floods, for instance, are a major cause of crop failure and massive reduction of crop yields.
Livestock productivity has also been greatly reduced.
5. Impact on human health and shelter
The developing countries, including those in Africa, have registered huge cases of climate-sensitive diseases. Lack of food has led to malnutrition in some of these countries.
Floods and prolonged droughts have, on the other hand, caused destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes, villages and shelters across the continent.
Droughts have forced people to flee from their original homes in search of food and water, either for themselves or for their livestock.
Much as the future of Africa in relation to climate change may look really bleak, it is not really late to reverse these effects. Government, the private sectors, institutions and other stakeholders need to pull their efforts, resources and expertise together to combat climate change. And, that can be done.
Sam Abuya is Africa Global News‘ Nairobi-based Editor-in-Chief
