Is Southern Africa sleepwalking into a climate catastrophe? – Wall Street Journal

As the world’s climate is changing; the tip of the African continent has experienced normal rainfall in only one of the last five growing seasons.

Published on:

18 Dec 2019, 1:40 pm

In Southern Africa, many people live from the land and they are dependent on the predictability of the seasons. The heavy summer rain that ends the dusty winters for their crops and the winter rain for the vineyards in the Cape. But as the world's climate is changing; the tip of the African continent has experienced normal rainfall in only one of the last five growing seasons. This means, according to estimates by the World Food Programme, that a record 45 million people in Southern Africa will be severely food insecure in the peak lean season. The countries that will be suffering are right on our borders – Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini and Lesotho – and further north – Zambia and Malawi. The area has been designated a climate hotspot by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Pictures of the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe tells the story of the drought in our neighbouring country. The drought has plunged millions of Zambians and Zimbabweans into darkness as hydro-power dams drain and government debt mounts. Rolling electricity blackouts lasting 18 hours a day have choked the two economies. Zimbabwe's GDP is expected to shrink this year and Zambia is on course for the slowest expansion in more than two decades. Nicholas Bariyo from the Wall Street Journal writes on the droughts in Southern Africa that could become the new normal. – Linda van Tilburg