Africa is expected to be the most continent affected by climate change, with an increase in severe droughts, floods and storms expected to threaten the health of populations and economies alike. Here are the five ways the continent will be affected.
Farming will mostly become harder. The IPCC says it has "high confidence" that rising temperatures and unpredictable rains will make it harder for farmers to grow certain key crops like wheat, rice and maize (corn). For example, it predicts that by 2050, yields for maize in Zimbabwe and South Africa could decrease by more than 30%.
But there will be some new farming opportunities, as it becomes difficult to grow some types of crops in South Africa, it will be easy to grow other types of crops in East Africa countries like Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. Though the overall picture for cereal crops in Africa is still a pessimistic one, the latest IPCC report says.
Thirdly is malnutrition; food insecurity, one of the key threats from climate change, will necessarily have a knock-on impact on people's health. The IPCC reports that in Mali by 2025, 250,000 children are expected to suffer stunting, or chronic malnutrition, and that "climate change will cause a statistically significant proportion" of these cases.
Fourth is Malaria, the IPCC admits that "the complexity of disease transmission" makes it incredibly difficult to say which diseases may become more or less prevalent as a result of climate change. But it does offer one confident prediction for the highland areas of East Africa, which are among the most densely populated on the continent.
According to the reports' authors, it is not only maize crops which are likely to benefit from the warmer temperatures, but malarial mosquitoes, causing increased epidemics of Africa's biggest killer, and introducing the disease to altitudes above 2,000 metres, which have so far been considered out of harm's way.
Lastly is shortage of water, Water scarcity is driven by so many other factors, such as population growth, rapid urbanisation and changes to the way land is being used, that it has not yet been possible to figure out exactly how climate change will add to the mix.
IPCC has predicted that rainfall is expected to decrease in northern Africa and parts of southern Africa. Despite this uncertainty, three contributing authors to the Africa report told the BBC that changes in rainfall were the single impact of climate change on the continent which they were most worried about.
Africa will need to act to reduce man-made climate change as well as putting in place strategies to deal with those which cannot be avoided, but it is not going to be cheap.
Source: BBC NEWS
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