Global Warming a Major
Threat to Africa
October 21, 2005 — By Alexandra Zavis, Associated Press
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Deadly
epidemics. Ruined crops. The extinction of some of Africa's legendary
wildlife. The potential consequences of global warming could be
devastating for the world's poorest continent, yet its nations are among
the least equipped to cope.
"It is our vulnerability that sets us apart from developed nations,"
said Luanne Otter, a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand
during a conference this week in South Africa on climate change.
Surface temperatures rose about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the 20th century
_ the largest increase in 1,000 years, according to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 1998 was the warmest year on
record, and 2005 could be even hotter.
Climate experts say the trend will continue as long as carbon dioxide
from burning fossil fuels and other gases keep building up in the
atmosphere, trapping heat like a greenhouse.
African nations account for a tiny percentage of the emissions but are
already suffering the consequences, researchers say.
The ice cap is receding on Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro.
Desertification is spreading in the northwestern Sahel region. Droughts,
flooding and other extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and
severe. Numerous plant and animal species are in decline.
South Africa's environmental affairs minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk,
urged the United States and other holdouts to sign the Kyoto Protocol,
which calls on the top 35 industrialized nations to cut carbon dioxide
and other gas emissions by 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels by 2012.
But even if countries stop polluting today, researchers argue the
effects will be felt for decades to come, posing what the African
Development Bank has singled out as possibly the greatest long-term
threat to poverty eradication efforts on the continent.
Some 770 million Africans _ 63 percent _ live in rural areas, and about
40 percent survive on less than a dollar a day. Most are small-scale
farmers. Wood is their major source of fuel, and medicinal plants their
main defense against disease.
Many are already subject to recurring droughts, floods and soil
degradation that can wipe out their livelihoods. Any long term changes
in temperatures and rainfall could fundamentally alter the landscape in
which they live and the production potential on which they depend.
Hotter, drier weather in the semiarid west of South Africa could reduce
production of maize, a staple, by up to 20 percent and generate a
proliferation of pests, researchers said. In the moister areas to the
east, where rainfall is forecast to increase, thickets are encroaching
into productive grasslands, threatening livestock and wildlife
activities.
Rising temperatures at higher altitudes could also quadruple the number
of South Africans at high risk of malaria by 2020.
With weather becoming more erratic, communities are finding themselves
with little time to recover from one disaster before being hit with the
next.
While the United States may be able to recover from Hurricane Katrina in
a year or two, it could take Mozambique 10 years to recover from the
catastrophic floods of 2000, said Roland Schulze a hydrologist at South
Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Tourism is also an important driver of development in a number of
African nations and most of it is nature-based.
Some species in South Africa's famed Kruger National Park are already
disappearing, said Norman Owen-Smith of the University of the
Witwatersrand.
Among those most at risk are the sable, tsebbebe, eland and roan
antelopes, which are already at the edge of their natural ranges. As
temperatures rise and rainfall becomes more erratic, they will want to
push east toward the more humid coastline but are blocked by Kruger's
fences, Owen-Smith said.
The East African coral reefs have already suffered major bleaching
events linked to increasing water temperatures and light, including one
in 1998 resulting in 75 percent to 77 percent mortality. Some experts
fear that could become the norm within the next half century.
Many argue it is only by rethinking conservation policies that species
will be preserved. Corridors will have to be created to allow animals to
migrate toward their favored climatic zones, or they may have to be
translocated to new habitats.
A number of southern African countries have already agreed to open their
borders to transfrontier parks.
Early warning systems and disaster management plans also will need to be
set up, new water sources explored, and decisions made about what crops
to farm and how best to allocate fishing rights.
Source: Associated Press |