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The last three mountain glaciers in Africa are shrinking so rapidly that they could disappear within two decades, a symbol of the wider devastation wrought by climate change on the continent. UN’s new report.
While African countries contribute less than 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Report of the World Meteorological Organization and other organizations He highlighted the huge impact that changes in climate have had on the continent’s 1.3 billion people, as floods worsen, droughts last longer and temperatures continue to rise.
“The rapid shrinking of the last remaining glaciers in East Africa, which is expected to melt completely in the near future, points to the threat of an imminent and irreversible change in the Earth system,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization. the foreword of the report.
The climate in Africa in 2020 was characterized by “continuous warming temperatures, accelerating sea level rise, extreme weather and climate events such as floods, landslides and droughts and their associated devastating effects”. UN climate conference in Scotland It starts on October 31st.
The loss of glaciers—the icy areas above the steamy tropics that has long been a subject of wonder and admiration—is a physical manifestation of change in Earth’s climate. Glaciers in Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount Kenya in Kenya, and the Rwenzori Mountains on the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have been retreating for years.
The report paints a chilling picture of both the impact to date and the consequences if urgent action is not taken. By 2030, close to 118 million people living on incomes of less than $1.90 a day “will suffer drought, floods and extreme heat in Africa unless adequate response measures are taken,” he said.
He warned that the daily struggle of families to find food will become more difficult as the effects of protracted conflicts, political instability, climate volatility, pest outbreaks and the economic crises exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic combine.
As David Beasley, head of the UN World Food Programme, said recently: “This is a region of the world that contributes nothing to climate change, but now they are paying the highest price.”
For example, in the East African island nation of Madagascar, the United Nations has already warned that it is witnessing the world’s first island nation. “climate scarcity.” Thousands of people are currently living catastrophic food shortage and according to the global organization, more than half a million people are one step away from hunger. About 800,000 more are at risk of joining them.
Worldwide, climate-related disasters now force twice as many people out of their homes as war and armed conflict. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, a non-governmental data service, recorded 14.6 million new displacements in 127 countries and territories in the first six months of 2020. Conflict and violence account for approximately 4.8 million, while disasters account for 9.8 million.
East Africa accounts for about 12 percent of these displacements, according to the report – conflicts forced nearly 500,000 people out of their homes, and climate disasters affected another 1.2 million.
Melting African glaciers have repeated similar trends in ice-covered hills as far away as Peru and Tibet, providing one of the clearest signs of a global warming trend in the past 50 years. surpassed typical climate change.
Temperatures continued to rise as the ice melted.
According to the report, “The 30-year warming trend for 1991-2020 was significantly higher in all African sub-regions than the 1961-1990 period and the 1931-1960 period”. “If this continues, it will lead to a reduction in total icing by the 2040s,” he warned.
The glacier on Mount Kenya — About 17,000 feet above sea level, where snow once covered the summit – expected to be gone a decade sooner, which will make it, the report said, “one of the first mountain ranges to lose glaciers due to human-induced climate change.”
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