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Africa is the continent that will suffer most under climate change. Temperature rise will trigger "sharp declines in crop yield in tropical regions", estimated at 5 to 10 % in Africa with an associated increase in undernourishment, malnutrition, malaria and related deaths.
50 % of all malnutrition-related deaths (4 million annually worldwide) occur in Africa, while a 2°C rise in temperature will increase the people affected by hunger, potentially by 30 to 200 million worldwide.
Globally, Africa and Western Asia will suffer the largest crop losses, while these regions are highly dependent on agriculture and have the largest limits in purchasing power. Conflict and violence triggered by scarce resources and famine will likely bring West Africa to socio-political instability. Even prosperous regions like the Cape will be touched, as millions of people will be displaced by drought and water shortages in the poorer areas.
In 2004, many South African farmers reported that rising temperatures impeded trees from sufficient winter resting, while fruit was becoming sunburned during ripening season. The shifting areal of the tree aloe (or kokerboom) to the south supports the observation that the Karoo desert is pushing south into the Cape.
The westerly storm bringing winter rainfall in the Cape region is expected to move south, missing the continent and losing their water out to sea. Drought has impacted Cape’s wheat production in the last years, and this trend has just begun. Future water scarcity – paradoxically - will increase water demand for human consumption, further cutting water amounts for an increasingly necessitated agriculture.
At a recent African Union summit, Uganda's combustible president, Yoweri Museveni, declared climate change an act of aggression by the rich world against the poor one—and demanded compensation. The moral arguments on climate change are even murkier than arguments about other wrongs done to Africa, such as slavery, but Mr Museveni may have hit on something. If the predictions of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), hold true, climate change may have a graver effect on Africa than on any other continent; the final part of the panel's latest report has just been published (see article). Scientists now blame industrialisation (read, the rich world) for some of the warming. In any event, the contrast between poverty in Africa and carbon gluttony elsewhere is sharp. Why should the poorest die for the continued excesses of the richest?
