Africa – Page 8 – Desdemona Despair

A man from the Maasai pastoralist community affected by the worsening drought due to the failed rainy season, attends to an emaciated cow at a livestock market in Ilbisil settlement of Kajiado, Kenya, 17 October 2022. Photo: Thomas Mukoya / REUTERS

November 13, 2022

Climate disasters put plight of displaced in COP27 focus – “Drought kills the plants, it kills everything, and then the rain comes washes away your homes”

By Gloria Dickie; editing by Katy Daigle and Ros Russell 13 November 2022 SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) – Issack Hassan lives in a migrant camp in Baidoa city in Somalia – one of more than a million people displaced since January after five successive failed rainy seasons. With Somalia in the grips of its worst […]

Near-surface temperature differences relative to the 1981–2010 average for 2022 to September. The map shows the median anomaly calculated from six data sets: HadCRUT5, ERA5, JRA-55, GISTEMP, NOAAGlobalTemp, and Berkeley Earth. Graphic: WMO

November 7, 2022

State of the Global Climate 2022: Sea level rise accelerates, European glacier melt shatters records, extreme weather causes devastation – “What climate scientists have warned about for decades is upon us”

By Seth Borenstein 6 November 2022 SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) – Earth’s warming weather and rising seas are getting worse and doing so faster than before, the World Meteorological Organization warned Sunday in a somber note as world leaders started gathering for international climate negotiations. [Eight warmest years on record witness upsurge in climate change impacts –Des] […]

Somalis who left rural areas due to drought receive nutritional assistance at a camp for the internally displaced on the outskirts of Baidoa, in the Southwest State of Somalia, Wednesday, 12 October 2022. Photo: Geneva Costopulos / WFP / AP

October 29, 2022

UN: Almost 1 million drought-hit Somalis in al-Shabab areas – Onset of the October-December deyr rains has either been late or performed poorly across most of Somalia

By Cara Anna 26 October 2022 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – The United Nations says close to 1 million drought-affected people in Somalia are in areas under the control or influence of the al-Shabab extremist group, and it appealed to the fighters to allow humanitarian access as famine threatens the country. The U.N. secretary-general’s special representative in Somalia, […]

Map showing Biodiversity Intactness Index for the year 2020 at 0.25° resolution. The global average is 77 percent. Data: Natural History Museum, 2022. Graphic: WWF / ZSL

October 27, 2022

WWF’s Living Planet Report 2022 reveals devastating 69 percent average drop in wildlife populations since 1970 – “We have cut away the very foundation of life and the situation continues to worsen”

TORONTO, 12 October 2022 (WWF-Canada) – Monitored wildlife populations — mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish — have seen a devastating 69 per cent drop on average since 1970 according to WWF’s Living Planet Report (LPR) 2022. The report highlights the stark outlook of the state of nature and urgently warns governments, businesses and the public to take […]

A child in a refugee camp carries water in Somalia, 2022. Somalia faces widespread famine after four failed rainy seasons, with a fifth season underway that likely will fail too, along with the sixth early in 2023. Photo: Fazel / UNICEF

October 26, 2022

UNICEF: Heatwaves to impact almost every child on earth by 2050 – “The climate crisis is a child rights crisis, and it is already taking a devastating toll on children’s lives and futures”

25 October 2022 (UN News) – Heatwaves have become an unavoidable health hazard for many nations, but new data indicates that they are set to affect virtually every child on earth by 2050, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned on Tuesday. Today, at least half a billion youngsters are already exposed to a high number of heatwaves, placing them on […]

Aerial view of flooding in South Sudan following fourth year of historic rainfall, 18 October 2022. Photo: UNHCR

October 23, 2022

Devastation in South Sudan following fourth consecutive year of historic floods – Two-thirds of country experiencing flooding – More than 900,000 people directly impacted

21 October 2022 (UNHCR) – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is urging international support for humanitarian efforts in South Sudan in the face of record-breaking rains and floods for a fourth consecutive year, and the threat of worse to come as the climate crisis accelerates. Two-thirds of the country is currently experiencing flooding. Over 900,000 […]

Aerial view of people arriving at a displacement camp in southern Somalia in late September 2022. Photo: Jerome Delay / AP Photo

October 23, 2022

Prolonged drought brings famine, death, and fear to Somalia – “We’d grieve, stop for a while, pray. We’d bury them beside the road.”

By Cara Anna 5 October 2022 DOLLOW, Somalia (AP) – A man in a donkey cart comes wheeling through the dust, carrying two small, silent boys. The sky is overcast. It could rain. It won’t. It hasn’t for a very long time. Mohamed Ahmed Diriye is 60 years old, and he’s completing the grimmest journey […]

People walk through floodwaters after heavy rainfall in Hadeja, Nigeria, 19 September 2022. Officials in Nigeria say the death toll from this year's flooding has now risen to 603. Authorities have called the floods the country's worst in more than a decade, blaming the disaster on unusually heavy rainfall and the release of excess water from the Lagdo dam in neighboring Cameroon. Photo: AP Photo

October 21, 2022

Millions of people at risk in Nigeria after worst floods in a decade – More than 1.3 million displaced – Cholera outbreak sickens 6,000 – 100,000 hectares of farmland underwater – Rains to continue through November – “This is a catastrophe indeed. All of these wrong things are happening at the same time.”

21 October 2022 (UN News) – More than 2.8 million people have been impacted by Nigeria’s worst floods in a decade, with 1.3 million displaced and hundreds of lives lost, said the UN chief on Friday, expressing his sadness at the devastation. Infrastructure and farmland have also been damaged, said the statement issued on behalf […]

Colombian natives and activists during a protest in Bogotá, Colombia, on 23 August 2019. Photo: RAUL ARBOLEDA / AFP / Getty Images

October 21, 2022

Countries where the most people are killed defending the environment

By Angelo Young 15 October 2022 (24/7 Wall St.) – As the world comes to the realization of the profound damages human beings are causing to natural environments worldwide, groups across the globe have long been trying to protect the local land and environment. In some places, these struggles are not always peaceful, and last […]

World corn stocks in consumption days, 2008-2022 and projected to 2023. Poor weather in key agricultural regions from the United States to France and China is shrinking grain harvests and cutting inventories, heightening the risk of famine in some of the world's poorest nations. Data: International Grains Council. Graphic: Prinz Magtulis / Reuters

September 27, 2022

Droughts, Ukraine war push global grain stocks toward worrying decade low – “It’s lining up to be like 2012. No one wants to admit it, but it’s true.”

By Tom Polansek 26 September 2022 CHICAGO (Reuters) – The world is heading toward the tightest grain inventories in years despite the resumption of exports from Ukraine, as the shipments are too few and harvests from other major crop producers are smaller than initially expected, according to grain supply and crop forecast data. Poor weather […]