The Africa Climate Summit beginning in Nairobi today, Monday, September 4 will be focusing on how the continent can make adjustments to the recent change in the climate of the region.
Scientists have commented that climate change is leading to more intense and frequent extreme weather events.
Some of these extreme weather changes seen in recent years include:
- Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia endured five successive failed rainy seasons from 2020 to 2022 in what has come to be known as the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades. This drought led to parts of Somalia being pushed to the brink of famine, leaving over 23 million people across the region facing extreme hunger, according to the World Food Programme. When the much-expected rains finally arrived in March 2023 in Somalia, they were unusually severe, leading to flash flooding that submerged homes and farmland, carried away livestock, and shut down schools and hospitals.
- Cyclone Freddy, one of the deadliest storms to hit Africa in the last twenty years ripped through Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar in late February 2023 and later came back in March. This cyclone raged for over a month, causing destruction and wreaking havoc. The flooding killed more than 1,000 people and forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
- West and Central Africa experienced arguably, its worst flooding disaster on record in 2022.
Over 1,500 people were killed in the aftermath of the flooding, leaving 3.2 million people displaced across 20 countries, according to the United Nations reports
The heavy floods also destroyed crops across approx. 1.6 million hectares of farmland. The nations: Nigeria, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo were among the hardest hit countries during the 2022 flooding.
