From Kilimanjaro to Mount Kenya, Africa's last glaciers will disappear in 20 years

    From Kilimanjaro to Mount Kenya, Africa's last glaciers will disappear in 20 years

    Although Africa contributes 4% to global greenhouse gas emissions, the impact of the climate crisis on the continent is exaggerated

    Although African nations contribute less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, this UN report shows that the impact of the climate crisis on the continent is exaggerated.





    The last three mountain glaciers in Africa (the one on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the one on Mount Kenya in Kenya and the one on the Ruwenzori mountain range in the Democratic Republic of Congo) they are shrinking at record speed and may even disappear within the next two decades - demonstrating how much this continent is suffering the devastating effects of climate change. This is what emerges from the report published by the World Meteorological Organization: despite emitting less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Africa is heavily impacted by the effects of the climate crisis. Ever higher temperatures, ever longer periods of drought and ever more devastating floods are compromising the survival of over 1,3 billion people on the continent.

    The rapid retreat of the last glaciers of East Africa, which are destined to completely melt in the near future, is a clear signal of the threat of an imminent and irreversible change in the "Earth system" - said the secretary general of the WMO. Taalas Petteri. - The climate in Africa in the last year has been characterized by a continuous increase in temperatures, an ever faster rise in sea level, by extreme weather phenomena such as floods, droughts and landslides, with devastating social and economic consequences.

    The WMO report dashes a terrifying picture of both the present impacts and the future consequences of the climate crisis if action is not taken now: 2030 million Africans already living in poverty (less than $ 118 a day) are expected to be exposed to drought, floods and extreme temperatures by 1,90 if adequate counter measures are not taken. People will find it increasingly difficult to find food and resources for survival, and this will exacerbate local conflicts and political instability, with consequences that are not yet foreseeable. The African island of Madagascar is already experiencing these terrible effects, experiencing the first environmental disaster due to the climate crisis: thousands of people struggle to find cito and more than half a million people are one step away from malnutrition, according to the United Nations .



    (Read also: No one is safe from the climate crisis anymore)

    Around the world, disasters related to the climate crisis are forcing people to leave their homes and migrate - far more so than wars and armed conflicts have done so far: in the first six months of 2020, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center recorded 14,6 million migrants who moved to 127 countries - of these, 4,8 million moved as a result of conflict and violence and the remaining 9,8 million due to the climate crisis. In Africa alone, 12% of total migrations were recorded: if about 500.000 people moved to escape wars, over 1,2 million have left their homes to escape the consequences of the climate crisis.

    The melting of African glaciers is following a similar trend to that followed by other glaciers in the world, such as those of Peru and Tibet, and provides a clear signal that global warming of the last 50 years has exceeded the limits of normal climate change. : the warming trend observed in the thirty years 1991-2020 was far greater than that observed in the thirty years 1961-1990 and even more than that of the previous thirty years (1931-1960). If we continue like this, we will see the total disappearance of glaciers around the world within a few decades.


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    Fonte: World Metereological Organisation

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