Climate Change Poses Growing Threats to Vulnerable Africa, UN Says

Ethiopia struggles to suppress desert locust infestation | Photo: REUTERS
Ethiopia struggles to suppress desert locust infestation | Photo: REUTERS
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Climate Change Poses Growing Threats to Vulnerable Africa, UN Says

Ethiopia struggles to suppress desert locust infestation | Photo: REUTERS
Ethiopia struggles to suppress desert locust infestation | Photo: REUTERS

Floods, droughts, hotter weather, and a desert locust invasion - the impacts of climate change are hitting Africa hard, and worse is ahead for the region´s food supplies, economy, and health, the UN climate agency said on Monday.

Temperatures have been rising on the continent of 1.2 billion at a comparable rate to other regions, but Africa is exceptionally vulnerable to the shock, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Warming temperatures are slashing crop yields. Agriculture is the backbone of Africa's economy.

"By the middle of this century, major cereal crops grown across Africa will be adversely impacted," the WMO said in a report.

It projected a reduction in yields of 13% in West and Central Africa, 11% in North Africa, and 8% in East and Southern Africa.

African countries are generally low-income and ill-equipped to respond to this and other consequences of climate change, the WMO said.

Natural disasters such as Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which struck three countries in southern Africa in 2019, underscored the region´s exposure, it said.

The cyclones forced more than two million people from their homes, killed many hundreds, and destroyed a half million hectares of crops in Mozambique.

Meanwhile, in drought-prone areas including West Africa´s Sahel, the number of undernourished people has jumped by 45% since 2012, the organization said. Climate change is compounding problems such as conflict to drive growing hunger.

In the Horn of Africa, below-average rainfall in 2018 and 2019 led to the worst cereal harvest in Somalia since records began in 1995 and to crop failures in neighboring Kenya.

Floods followed. Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania recorded at least double their average seasonal rainfall in late 2019.

The rain helped crops grow but also fuelled the locusts that have devoured hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in those countries since January.

For now, the poorest are most affected.

Africa´s overall gross domestic product will fall by between 2.25% and 12.12% as temperatures rise, according to a "long-term impact" study cited in the report. It did not specify a time period for the forecast.

Warmer and wetter weather is also more suitable for insects that transmit dengue fever, malaria, and yellow fever.



Suspect in Killing of Top Russian General Charged with Terrorism

A detainee, named as Uzbek national Akhmad Kurbanov and considered by investigators as a suspect in the murder of chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov along with his assistant, sits inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova
A detainee, named as Uzbek national Akhmad Kurbanov and considered by investigators as a suspect in the murder of chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov along with his assistant, sits inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova
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Suspect in Killing of Top Russian General Charged with Terrorism

A detainee, named as Uzbek national Akhmad Kurbanov and considered by investigators as a suspect in the murder of chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov along with his assistant, sits inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova
A detainee, named as Uzbek national Akhmad Kurbanov and considered by investigators as a suspect in the murder of chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Igor Kirillov along with his assistant, sits inside an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova

The suspect in the killing of top Russian general Igor Kirillov has been charged with an act of terrorism resulting in the death of a person, a notice on the website of the Moscow court said on Thursday.

Russia said on Wednesday it had detained an Uzbek man who had confessed to planting and detonating a bomb in Moscow which killed Kirillov, who was the chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, on the instructions of Ukraine's SBU security service.

Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said in a statement on Wednesday that the unnamed suspect identifed as Akhmad Kurbanov had told them he had come to Moscow to carry out an assignment for Ukraine's intelligence services.
In a video published by the Baza news outlet, which is known to have sources in Russian law-enforcement circles, the suspect is seen sitting in a van describing his actions.

He describes placing the device on the electric scooter and parking it outside the apartment block where Kirillov lived.
Investigators cited him as saying he set up a surveillance camera in a hire car which, they said, was watched in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro by people who organized the killing.
The suspect, who is thought to be 29, is shown saying he remotely detonated the device when Kirillov left the building. He says Ukraine had offered him $100,000 and residency in a European country.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry, said Moscow would raise the assassination at the United Nations Security Council on Dec. 20.