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Add to Preferred SourcesOxfam warns that millions of inhabitants of Eastern African countries need urgent food assistance due to the erratic weather patterns triggered by climate change.
The organization estimates that currently some 50 million people urgently require food support in the Horn, East, and Central Africa, with the number expected to grow significantly, as many countries have experienced droughts or far from average rainfall which affected harvests and disrupted food security. Among the most impacted countries are South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda.
Farmers, who make up to 80% of the population in the Horn, East, and Central African region, have been hit by many consecutive climate-related disasters during this year. First, they experienced floods, followed by locusts, and currently, they are suffering due to droughts.
The locusts destroyed 100,000 hectares of cropland in Somalia, 200,000 hectares in Ethiopia, and around 70,000 in Kenya, causing US$8.5 billion in losses which led to food shortages and livestock starving to death. Some voices say these are the most devastating invasions of desert locusts in the last 70 years Furthermore, the long-term lockdowns and the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to an increase in the price of seeds and pesticides making it harder to restore crop growing and harvesting. The country worst affected by the locust invasion was Ethiopia, which has also become the scene of military conflict in Tigray.
The insects then moved further inland towards Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan. The cumulation of drought, floods, locusts, and the pandemic, which has strongly weakened the fragile economies of these countries, is expected to result in higher levels of poverty and hunger. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the worst affected countries at the moment are Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. The UN agency has requested US$40 million in additional funding to curb the effects of the locust infestation.
According to Oxford International, the disasters happened as a result of the La Niña phenomenon which is driven by climate changes. La Niña is a complex weather pattern resulting from variations in ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific. It means cooler than usual ocean water temperatures in the eastern part of the Pacific, which impacts temperatures and storm patterns, and thus rainfall. Occurring every three to seven years, when La Niña does hit East Africa, it brings a dry season and less rainfall, affecting yields. The current state may last until 2021 and scientists have warned that global warming will make La Niña stronger.
Although the Global South, including Africa, suffers most because of the climate changes, it is not a main contributor to the situation. The 10 countries that emit the highest amount of carbon dioxide that makes the atmosphere warmer are the US, China, Japan, Russia, India, Germany, UK, Italy, Canada, and France, which together, produced around 468GtCO2 within 25 years. Meanwhile, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda, who are on the edge of humanitarian crisis and famine, produced only 0.89GtCO2 in the same period which represents 0.2% of the total global carbon emissions between 1990 and 2015.