Читать книгу Climate Change For Dummies - Elizabeth May - Страница 23

On a per-person basis, Africans have contributed the very least to global warming because of overall low levels of industrial development. Just look at a composite photo of the planet at night: The United States, southern Canada, and Europe are lit up like Christmas trees, burning energy that results in GHG emissions. Africa, on the other hand, shows very few lights: some offshore oil rigs twinkle, and a few cities shine, but the continent is mostly dark.

Despite contributing very little to the source of the problem, many countries in Africa are already experiencing effects of global warming. East Africa Hazards Watch says

“Major cities in East Africa have witnessed an increase in temperatures that almost doubles the 1.1 degrees C warming that the globe has experienced since pre-industrial times. Since 1860 Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) has warmed by 2.2 degrees C, Khartoum (Sudan) by 2.09 degrees C, Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) by 1.9 degrees C, Mogadishu (Somalia) by 1.9 degrees C, and Nairobi (Kenya) by 1.9 degrees C.”

Global warming is expected to melt most of Africa’s glaciers within the next few decades, which will reduce the already critically low amount of water available for farming. Long periods of drought followed by deluge rainfall have had devastating impacts in places such as Mozambique. Coastal areas in East Africa have suffered damage from storm surges and rising sea levels. The World Bank projects that by 2050 86 million people could be displaced by climate-related changes.

Unfortunately, because of pervasive poverty and the historic scourge of HIV/AIDS and now of COVID, many areas of Africa lack the necessary resources to help people living there cope with climate change. And the effects of global warming may act as a barrier to development and aggravate existing problems. At present, as many as 400 million (or 33 percent of the continent’s population) lack drinkable water, according to the World Resources Institute. The IPCC projects that some countries could see a 50-percent drop in crop yields over the same period and a 90-percent drop in revenue from farming by the year 2100. (We look at how developing nations are affected by and are addressing global warming in Chapter 12.)