Impact of 4 Degree Celsius Warming

Downscaled Global Climate Models (GCMs) projections across three different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios (SRES A2, A1b, B1), all downscaled to a 0.5 degree resolution (~50 km) for the time periods of 1961-1999, 2046-2045, and 2071-2100 show the likely trajectory the climate is likely to take in the coming decades. From different types of climate analyses, we can predict how much more often extreme events, such as droughts and flooding, will occur in the future.

The projected mean temperature and rainfall (from the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal Website, http://sdwebx.worldbank.org/climateportal/index.cfm) for the period 2046-2065 and 2081-2100 (A2 emissions) is shown in the following panels.

These temperature and precipitation projections form the basis of climate metrics and impact modeling results on agriculture, water supply, fire risks, human health, urban energy demand, biodiversity, etc., which can be used to support climate planning and action. The results are not reproduced here due to space limitation. However, suffice it to say that both temperature-based derivative metrics (e.g., average high and low temperature; hottest and coldest temperature; hot days temperature; number of frost days; number of warm days and nights; number of cold days and nights; heat wave duration index; growing degree days; heating degree days; and cooling degree days) and precipitation-based derivative metrics (i.e., total precipitation; consecutive dry days; number of dry periods; number of wet days; wet days; wet day rainfall; 5 day rainfall; and daily rainfall) calculated from daily downscaled future climate projections are robust and have applications in planning crop productivity, water supply, human health, energy demand, and ecosystem resilience in a changing climate. This resource, among others, must be used to inform local and national decision making processes about which policies or specific measures are needed to tackle climate impacts.

Naturally, future climate change analysis is more complicated than it is for the past because there is not a single, but many sets of time series projections from different GCMs runs with a range of CO₂ emissions scenarios. For example, using ensemble analysis to combine the analysis of multiple GCMs and quantify the range of possibilities for future climate under just one emission (A2) scenario, we develop the following climate model maps of ensemble average for change in temperature and precipitation in 2046-2065 and 2081-2100.

These ensembles of climate models tell a story; mean temperatures will increase while annual precipitation will decline. But, this is not futuristic; the impacts of a changing climate are already being felt, with more frequent droughts and more floods, which are forecast to increase with further climate change. This, according to the World Development Report 2010, “is taxing individuals, firms, and governments, drawing resources away from development … continuing climate change, at current rates, will pose increasingly severe challenges to development.” The WD Report further notes that “even relatively modest additional warming will require big adjustments to the way development policy is designed and implemented,…. changing the kinds of risks people prepare for; where they live; what they eat; and the way they design, develop, and manage agro-ecological and urban systems”.

It is very important for Zimbabwe, the Southern Africa region, and Africa to act now, act together and act differently. The imperative of acting now is because of the tremendous inertia in both climate and socioeconomic systems: today’s actions will determine tomorrow’s options; .act together to keep costs down , to protect the most vulnerable and to ensure adequate food and water for all countries; and act differently to transform energy, food production and risk management systems. By acting now, acting together and acting differently, Zimbabwe and Africa will be able to transition to a low emission, climate resilient development path, as well as contribute to stabilizing concentration of greenhouse gases. 

Teaching Earth Science to Kids

I spent a better part last evening discussing with my nine year old his homework. What struck me is that it was not the usual kiddy stuff. This was the kind of subject I grapple with day in day. The lad wanted to know the wetlands around our neighborhood, and how they could be useful for sustainability and food security. Wow, this is the kind of stuff you'd expect to hear from the AU, UNGA, and other high-level forums! But, yes it is being debated here and right now by the next generation. My guess is as good as yours; they are preparing to take responsibility into their own hands. That is the right thing to do, and we must support our schools and teachers to do the right thing all the way! 

Of presidents probing past misdeads

Whenever a new administration takes office it is almost predictable that it would seek to probe its predecessors. The irony is that when they are voted out of power and it is time for them to bow out (if they are gracious enough that is) it comes as no surprise either that their complicity in corruption and other malfeasance is often not less but worse than the mess they claimed to be cleaning. This behavior has come to characterize many a regime that have come to power in this century thereby nipping in the bud the dream of a new Africa. Perhaps Africa at the beginning of the 21st Century is no much different than the one of the twentieth century after all it is business-as-usual if accounts of sleaze in high places is anything to go by. If this be the case the promise to end corruption or investigate past cases of corruption are empty and hollow. Corruption per se should not be an issue if we lack the will and capacity to deal with it. Ironically, it is if and when we marshal the fortitude to deal with this vanity that we will realize the dream of government of the people, for the people and by the the people.

This is not time to point fingers

There is one last stop, Barcelona. The road to Copenhagen has been long and demanding. Negotiators under the two tracks—the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA)—have put in long hours of hard work to get to this point. Although the remaining part of the journey is relatively short, it could turn out to be the most torturous if there is no significant shift in positions. One lesson I have learnt in life is that problems that appear intractable have some of the simplest of solutions.

To break the current “impasse”, I recommend developing (non-Annex I) countries commit to measurable, verifiable and reportable emission reduction targets in the post-Kyoto climate framework. In other words, the distinguishing criteria in the Copenhagen deal should be the level of emission reduction targets (ERTs) different countries are committed to and not whether a country has binding commitments or not. This might sound politically incorrect, but a closer scrutiny of what is at stake will reveal that it is the most feasible route to avoid the 2 degrees threshold (with some luck we can even limit it to 1.5 degrees). Countries cooperate because it is to their self best interest to do so. I have yet to meet anyone who says it is alright to go beyond the tipping point.

I am convinced that at the pace at which science is moving we are very likely to have clearer understanding of the role of primary aerosols and pollutant gases such as nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, sulphates, and hundreds of organic gases and acids in atmospheric brown clouds (ABCs) in climate change sooner than later. This knowledge will be crucial to mathematically arrive at binding ERTs, primarily focusing on the “better half” greenhouse gases, which will help save the world as we know it. I believe Africa, which has hitherto pursued the greenest development path, must give effect to its historical experience by providing leadership in the climate talks.

Kenya back in the woods?

Within one decade during which time Kenya experienced declining political risk after the successful 2002 elections, the country is back in the woods again, caught between heightened political risk—thanks to ethnic and social tensions with roots in inequality—and depressed economic growth outlook due to the effects of a changing climate and global economic recession. Unfortunately this is a very short time for the payoff to reforms to start bearing fruits and experience from countries as disparate as China, India and Vietnam suggests, such stability is needed for a minimum 10-15 years for positive long-run growth trends to take hold. With Obama’s administration having taken a very firm position on ending corruption and impunity in the continent, Kenya’s options are fairly limited.

Greater Professional Collaboration Essential

Greater professional collaboration is critical if Africa is to solve some of the problems afflicting the continent. For example, Architects, Hydrologists and Water Engineers must collaborate to tap rain water in built up areas and inject it into aquifers to enhance groundwater recharge. Erratic rainfall and degradation of water resources and weak water resources are some of the reasons for the slow recharge rate of both surface and ground water resources. This has resulted in the low volumes in Ndakaini, Masinga and other dams with potentially devastating consequences for the economy. Yet, with judicious application of acquifer storage and recovery and related technologies, we can greatly improve our overall water security.

Climate Change Exposes Children to Extreme Poverty

A report by the National Council for Children’s Services (NCCS) says that children in drought and famine ravaged districts are suffering from malnutrition and diseases complicated by hunger than ever before. Slightly more than half of Kenya’s population of nearly 35 million people is below 18 years.

The NCCS report identifies illnesses such as diarrhea, anemia, skin and respiratory complications as some of the ailments affecting children. Turkana, with a malnutrition rate of between 85 and 93 percent, is the worst affected. Conducted in districts worst affected by hunger, the assessment also reveals that school enrolment in most districts has dropped dramatically due to famine with early childhood centers and primary schools recording the highest dropout rates.

Kenya is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), adopted by the United Nations in 1989. The Articles of the Convention as well as the Guiding Principles aim to ensure child survival and development. Kenya is also a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

It is against this background that the Day of the African Child marked on 15 June, 2009, made appeal to African countries to tackle issues affecting children. Dubbed the UN Millennium Campaign, African states, civil society organizations and the private sector were all challenged to tackle child and maternal mortality, school dropout, gender inequality and poor standards in schools with utmost urgency.

The Millennium Development Goals are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving the lives that world leaders agreed on at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. The second Goal of Achieving Universal Primary Education, for example, has a target to ensure that all boys and girls complete primary education. The fourth Goal of Reducing Child Mortality has a target to reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five.

Given such humane and noble aspirations, it should be a source of great concern for every man and woman that 50,000 children in Africa risk loosing their lives before they reach the age of five while a staggering 38 million others of school-going age are still out of school. It is in this context that concerns about the possible negative economic and social consequences of response measure to climate change were recently raised in the just ended climate change talks held in Bonn.

The suffering of the innocent, especially women and children, is a pain to most souls. To paraphrase a Burmese man, Sai Kur Sang, we do not want our children to suffer like us; we want them to survive and have better lives. There is growing global awareness about the impacts of climate change but very little action. As a health issue, for example, the impacts of climate change are not going just to be felt in some distant future, but are affecting our lives and those of our children here and now. Those most at risk are the climate-cum-political refugees like the children in Shalom City, a refugee camp for tens of thousands in Kenya.

Some positive and encouraging steps in the right direction are already being undertaken. Not too long ago, through the initiative of a number of institutions and NGOs, Nepalese women and children had an opportunity to use filmmaking to research the impacts of climate to their communities and create videos to campaign for what would most help them to adapt to climate change (Tamara Plush, 2009). These and similar kinds of initiatives should and must be supported both in words as well as in deeds if they are to make significant difference to the affected communities.

The Earthchild Institute recently launched a very innovative programme dedicated to children and the environment. We would like to recognize what they are doing and urge the rest of us, each one of us, to give serious thought at what our individual actions may mean to this and future generations. As Mahatma Gandhi once said "if we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with children". Similarly, a renowned pediatrician, Prof Anthony Costello, recently cautioned in a report published in the Guardian that if we do not act conscientiously, "we are setting up a world for our children and grandchildren that may be extremely turbulent".