How climate change affects Africa...?

By Clive Mutame Siachiyako

“Nearly 40 years ago, women living in Kenya — my home country — reported a troubling phenomenon. Their streams were drying up. Crops were failing, and they were being forced to travel farther and farther away from their villages to gather firewood. Today, this story remains all too common across Africa. Climate change may seem like something distant and abstract, but it’s very real and it impacts every one of us” – Wanjira Mathai Director for partnerships for the Women’s Entrepreneurship in Renewable.

 Mathai is expressing visibility of climate change effects in a simpler way possible in her case in Kenya. Typically, we see these changes in different versions and we wonder what went wrong with the old good days when seasons, rains, weather conditions, etc., were stable. Climate change effects are almost visible in any aspect of life. Whether you are in the village or most urbanised part of the continent you might have met it in one possibly without realising.

As I explained in the previous article “what is global warning and climate change anyway,” climate change causes the earth’s temperature to rise. It brings about changes in precipitation levels, a rise in sea level, and more frequent and intense weather events. And it can threaten our access to such basic needs as food, water, health and shelter. Let us look more closely at some of these impacts.

Changes in the earth’s climate have a direct impact on what Africans grow and eat. We know that agriculture is extremely important to Africa’s economy. Seventy percent of the population lives by farming and a third of the income in Africa is generated by agriculture.

Most crops in Africa — over 95 percent — are primarily watered by rainfall. If it has not rained that season we are ushered into the mouth of food insecurity and hunger. This makes food crops in the continent vulnerable to health stress from the warming planet and extreme weather events linked to climate change. These include changes to seasonal rainfall, droughts and floods. In fact, rain-fed agriculture in Africa could drop by half in 2020. Already El-Nino [the warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation] is affecting rainfall patterns, causing heat waves, floods, increased heat, etc., in different parts of the world. These effects are running for three consecutive years: 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Climate change is already affecting many fisheries around the world. The warming brought about by climate change increases ocean temperatures, which causes some fish to move to cooler waters beyond their normal range. These changes to the marine environment have devastating consequences for people dependent on fishing for food and their income. In Zambia we have parts famous for fish running out of it. Over fishing has been blamed for it mostly. Climate change added its ‘voice’ to the reproduction system of the fish. We have always had fish breeding seasons and the stock of fish was impressively adequate, but not anymore. 

South Luangwa National Park

We also have problems with numbers of wildlife. Some parts like in Luapula province along the Luapula River, all the animals seem gone. Were they all eaten up? In as much as people killed a lot of them, the ecosystem’s support capacity has its weight on it as well. As the vegetation dwindles, animal food goes down, their reproduction diminishes and the sizes go down. Coupled with poaching, the extinction of animals is very probable. The reduction in the support system in the jungle has also led to human-animal conflict as animals get closer to people’s homes where food is grown be it maize, cassava, millet, etc. They also want to have a share of what is still available...the grown crops by humans. Scramble for survival it is.

 Climate change is also having a huge impact on our health. Changes in rainfall associated with climate change can increase the population of disease-carrying mosquitoes. This is resulting in more malaria, the biggest killer in Africa. Scientists have noted that malaria is already spreading to higher elevations in Africa — in part due to climate change. Predictions are for a 5 to 7 percent increase in malaria distribution by the end of the century. For example, in Zambia, mosquitoes are there all-year-round. In the past we only used to experience them during the rainy season. Not anymore. They survive all the way, thus making malaria an all-year-round disease burden. 

Since climate change does not only lead to similar effects such as low rainfall or drought, it shows itself in varied ways. For example, a warmer environment with more rainfall, which also increase the cases of other deadly diseases, such as yellow fever and dengue fever. In addition to these diseases, the poor air quality that often accompanies a heat wave can lead to breathing problems and worsen respiratory conditions. In Zimbabwe heat wave warnings were circulated by the ministry of the environmental and natural resources sometime in August 2015 and giving people cautions to prevent themselves from dying from the heat waves. 

Who are the most vulnerable among us? It is often the urban poor, older adults, young children, traditional societies, and subsistence farmers. These are the most harmed by these threats due to many factors that make them less fortune. Among them is their body fighting capacity and lack of options when hit by the effects of climate change. For example, extreme weather events linked to the changing climate can cause huge migrations of people. Flooding, drought, and other competition for resources like fresh water can ignite conflict. It can impel people to leave their homes and migrate. And as my mother once said, “In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources, and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy, and peace.”

 Is there any hope? Yes there is...although the impacts of climate change are real and very serious, there is much that we can do to combat it, here in Africa and around the world. In the next article, focus will be on ways to address changes caused by climate change.

Thanks to Wanjira Mathai (2015). The Solutions: Taking Action to Reduce Climate Change. Dec 8, 2015  yali.state.gov/courses