African Climes

The year 2023 has been a busy one in climate change. Climate effects have continued being felt worldwide in various forms and their impacts on human society and economic growth persists. The natural world is also impacted, though wildlife and ecosystems are unable to speak for themselves. Human dependence on nature for survival is now directly influenced by climate change. So, what happened in 2023? In terms of climate policy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report showing that low emissions sources will account for majority of growth in global electricity demand up to 2025 and that the share of renewables will rise to 35% in 2025. The EU parliament banned the sale of new petrol and diesel (fossil fuels) cars in the bloc from 2035 and set a target of 55% drop from 2021 carbon emission levels for new vehicles sold from 2030. In March, the IPCC released the final synthesis report of the AR6 [1] . The document notes that every fraction of warming significantly inc...

Climate change is already affecting water availability, quality, quantity, access and security. Rising greenhouse concentrations are raising atmospheric temperatures and a hotter atmosphere has a higher capacity to absorb moisture. High temperatures result to increased evapotranspiration and this has two effects. First is that it dries up the areas over which water is evaporating, and it results to heavy rainstorms when this water distills as rain over other areas. Droughts and floods are common effects of climate change and they are predicted to increase globally as we surely inch towards the 1.5 degrees mark above preindustrial times. What this means is that water security - the state of having good quality water in abundance over short or long term durations - is directly impacted. Water security is needed in both natural ecosystems and the human world. Water quality is also determined by climate change as floodwaters can easily be contaminated by waste, poisoning fresh water so...