East Africa Threat from Climate Change – New Report

A recent report on climate vulnerability projects increased rainfall in East Africa that will result in a change of the seasons by 2050.

This was said here yesterday at the on going workshop organised by Reuters and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), by an economist of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Mr Andrew Mude.

“We can’t predict the exact impact of climate change but the overall consensus is clear and what is required is efficiency in disaster risk management,” he said.

Mr Mude said that an increase in rainfall may appear to be good news but the underlying problem owing to climate change is the change in seasonality whereby farmers will not be able to know the best time to plant. He added that projections from different models showed that inevitably rising temperatures will lead to increased evaporation which is no longer offset by rainfall increases thus resulting in decreasing growing periods. He said that there was need to improve communication channels and disseminating accurate and useful information to relevant stakeholders.

ILRI Spatial analyst for Targeting Opportunities Theme, Ms Ann Notenbert said many vulnerable regions like East Africa were likely to be adversely affected. Ms Notenbert said that adaptation would need to be dynamic and continuous with substantial implications for the tools, indicators and threshold analyses that would need to guide it.

“Africa has some of the lowest greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming but will have to bear some of the greatest burdens of climate change impacts on human health and agriculture,” she explained.