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70 million people at risk
06/11/2006 07:51 - (SA)
Nairobi - Africa is more vulnerable than
feared to global warming, with 70 million people at risk from
coastal flooding by 2080 and more than a quarter of wildlife
habitats under threat, a UN report said on Sunday.
Helping the world's poorest continent adapt to climate
change must be a key focus of ministers meeting in Kenya for a
major conference opening on Monday, it said.
Africa's vulnerability to global warming was "even more
acute" than had been feared, it said, and sparse historical data
coupled with inadequate forecasting centres added to problems.
"Climate change is under way and the international community
must respond by offering well targeted assistance to those
countries in the frontline which are facing increasing impacts,"
said UN Environment Programme (UNEP) head Achim Steiner.
Sunday's report gave dire predictions for Africa, including
sea level rises increasing the number of people at risk from
coastal flooding to 70 million by 2080 from one million in 1990.
An estimated 30% of the continent's coastal
infrastructure was at risk, it said, including seaside
settlements in the Gulf of Guinea, Senegal, Gambia and Egypt.
Habitats and ecosystems were threatened by changing weather
patterns, it added, and 25% to more than 40% of
species' habitats could be lost altogether by 2085.
Nearly three-quarters of all Africans - and almost all its
poorest people - rely on agriculture for a living, and global
warming was also seen having a devastating effect on farming.
Cereal crop yields will drop by up to five percent by the
2080s, with subsistence crops also seeing climate-linked falls.
Baglis Osman Elasha, a Sudanese climate change researcher,
said her country was already feeling the effects of global
warming.
"The gum arabic belt, an economically important crop, has
shifted southward below latitude 14 degrees north," she said.
"The rains, which used to occur from mid-June to the end of
August, now start in mid-July until the end of September with
important ramifications for agriculture and livelihoods."
At the talks, about 6 000 delegates will discuss how to
broaden the fight against warming beyond the Kyoto Protocol,
capping emissions of greenhouse gases by 35 industrial nations
until 2012, to include outsiders such as China, India and the
United States.
- Reuters
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