U.S., Africa are the talk of climate conference

Warning about Africa
On Sunday, the U.N. Environment Program released a report concluding that Africa’s vulnerability to warming was “even more acute” than had been feared, with 70 million people at risk from coastal flooding by 2080, up from 1 million in 1990, and more than a quarter of wildlife habitats under threat.

“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 UNEP head Achim Steiner.

An estimated 30 percent of the continent’s coastal infrastructure was at risk, the report 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 percent to more than 40 percent 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 5 percent by the 2080s, with subsistence crops also seeing climate-linked falls, the report predicted.

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.”

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