How climate change hurts Africa

This 2015 video is about climate change and Africa.

By Barry Mason:

Reports show impact of climate change in Africa

A recent news item on Britain’s Independent Television News by Martin Geissler highlighted the impact of climate change on sub-Saharan Africa. He reported from Lesotho, a country of less than two million people, which forms an enclave within South Africa.

With a Human Development Index of 149 out of 177 and a nearly 30 percent prevalence of HIV/AIDS amongst its adult population, Lesotho already faces a multitude of problems.

It is now facing changes in climate, with drought conditions the worst in 30 years. Geissler interviewed a local farmer who had been farming his land for 60 years. He explained how the weather patterns began to change around 20 years ago and continue to worsen. In the past, his crop would be 80 bags of corn—now it is seven bags.

The wet season used to be predictable. Starting in August the rains would arrive and continue steadily until the turn of the New Year. This pattern began to alter in the 1980s. Now the land receives only one month’s rain, often in torrents that erode the soil and leave the land unworkable.

The United Nations expects hundreds of thousands of people to face hunger, and is preparing a massive relief operation. Bhim Udas of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) estimated 30-35 percent of the population would be at risk of malnutrition.

It is a similar picture in Zambia. The British Guardian newspaper of July 6 carried an article by Associated Press writer Joseph Schatz writing from Pemba in Zambia.

He spoke with corn farmers who explained how the rainy season used to be predictable almost to the day. Now the rain that should come in October and stretch through to March may not appear until November or even December.