Impact of Climate Change in Africa

There are those who argue that this is normal, the earth is going through a typical cycle and there is nothing to worry about. And, there are those who argue that “Global Warming” or “Climate Change” is a direct result of uncontrolled gas emission mainly caused by industrial countries and there is a need for regulations and control to further reduce its impact on the environment. Al Gore made it clear in his award winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”.

In this predicament, Africa is the most vulnerable to the climate change for many reasons. The lack of sound infrastructures and environment policies are there to accentuate and accelerate the impact of global warming on the continent, mainly on the countryside where agriculture plays a major role.

African farmers are forced to adapt to these new environment changes or face great consequences if they don’t. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), projections in yield in some countries could be as much as 50 per cent by 2020, and crop net revenue could fall by as much as 90 per cent by 2100, with most-scale farmers being the most affected.

The African ecosystem is at high risk of degradation, Mt. Kilimanjaro’s ice fields have seen a 80 per cent decrease (EPA.gov), many regions will see a rise in droughts and floods, the lack of access to safe drinking water will enable eradicated diseases such as Cholera and many other to re-emerge.

The lack of resources allocated by African governments to this cause is tiny and in most cases quite nonexistent. A large majority of the resources are allocated mainly to deal with issues such as poverty, economy, social and political turmoil. This task is left to international organizations such as the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA), a joint program between the Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC) and the UK – Department for International Development (DFID). This is a research and capacity development program aiming at improving the capacity of Africa Countries to adapt to climate ways in ways that benefit that most vulnerable.

With the sub-Saharan Africa population projected to double by 2036 according to World Bank, this just make things harder for the continent to cope with if drastic major sound environmental policies are not implemented as soon as possible.