Africa Just Got Trumped

The US president’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord may have devastating consequences for African countries.

- Mariam Isa

Africa will be the region hardest hit by US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the world’s biggest economy from the Paris Agreement, which aims to reduce the greenhouse gasses responsible for rising temperatures and drive adaptation and finance to deal with weather changes.

Temperatures on the continent are expected to rise 1.5 times faster than the global average, triggering extreme weather and changes in rainfall patterns that are already starting to wreak havoc on agriculture, which provides livelihoods for about twothirds of Africa’s people.

An estimated 20m people in South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria are already believed to be at risk of starvation and scientists say that food production in sub-Saharan Africa needs to increase by 60% over the next 15 years to feed the rapidly growing population.

Scientists say that the most worrying impact of climate change on the region is changes in rainfall – a huge threat as more than 90% of farmed land is estimated to be rain-fed. Southern Africa faced its worst drought in decades last year, leading to food shortages that affected 14m people, according to United Nations humanitarian agencies.

Things could get a lot worse – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the recognised global authority on climate science, predicts that rising temperatures and unpredictable rains will make it harder for many farmers to grow crops like wheat, rice and maize.