Climate change apocalypse
Sheree Bega
Cape Town’s major water-supply dam, Theewaterskloof, at its devastating level of
11%. Yachts lie dry with dead fish visible on the parched bed of the dam. Cape Town
suffered extreme water-level restrictions since 2015. Henk Kruger African News Agency (ANA)
M
ore heatwaves and very hot days,
bringing further drought to southern
and North Africa. Crop yield and
livestock production hammered.
That’s the grim outlook sketched by a
monumental new assessment by the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), which warns that the planet has just 12
years to reverse global warming.
If global temperatures climb more than 2ºC
above pre-industrial levels by 2050, heat
extremes “never experienced before” by
humans could affect 15% of sub-Saharan
Africa’s land area in the hot season, causing
deaths and threatening farmers’ ability to
grow crops, says the IPCC.
For Prof Francois Engelbrecht, chief
researcher in climate studies, modelling and
environmental health at the CSIR, the problem
of adapting to climate change in southern
Africa is that it’s already a dry and warm
region.
“When such a region becomes drier and
warmer, there are few opportunities for
AgriKultuur |AgriCulture
adapting to climate change. In particular, the
report indicates that crop yield in southern
Africa and livestock production is to be
negatively affected by climate change at
1.5°C of global warming,” says Engelbrecht,
who served as a lead author of the IPCC’s
new Special Report on the impacts of Global
Warming of 1.5°C.
“These impacts will increase further and
become more negative under 2°C of warming.
Under 3°C of global warming, the viability
of livestock production will be directly
threatened, and the maize crop will be
severely reduced, or may even collapse.”
The report finds that if the world continues to
warm at the current rate, global temperatures
will climb by 1.5ºC between 2030 and 2052.
This will have catastrophic effects on water
scarcity, global food production, and almost
entirely wipe out global coral reef systems.
“Even if we are successful to restrict global
warming to 1.5°C, however, there will be
widespread impacts of climate change
across the globe, and Africa is particularly
vulnerable,” says Engelbrecht.
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