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The ice of Kilimanjaro will be gone forever in a few decades.
Photo: DEA / V. GIANNELLA / De Agostini via Getty Images
For many millions of people on the African continent, the climate crisis represents an acute existential threat. The World Weather Organization (WMO), together with the African Union and other partners, presented a report on this in Geneva.
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From this it emerges: With rising temperatures, more extreme weather conditions and changed rainfall, climate change is exacerbating the hunger crisis in Africa and driving people from their homeland.
The continent is disproportionately affected by floods, droughts and landslides.
Global warming and its consequences are felt more strongly in Africa than the global average, according to the report.
The year 2020, around which the new report revolves, was among the ten warmest years since measurements began.
The temperature was 0.86 degrees Celsius above the average in the three decades before 2010.
Africa's glaciers will be gone in 20 years
This development has an impact on the African glacier areas: "The rapid shrinking of the last remaining glaciers in East Africa, which are expected to melt completely in the near future, shows the danger of imminent and irreversible changes in the earth system," said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas.
There are still three tropical ice fields in Africa: According to the report, the Mount Kenya massif in Kenya will be free of glaciers by the 2030s - as one of the first mountain ranges in the world.
Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda could also be ice-free in the 2040s.
The rise in sea levels on Africa's southern coasts is already above the global average.
The development underlines the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to do more for climate protection and to provide more money for adaptation processes, said the meteorologist Taalas.
118 million people in poverty are threatened by droughts and floods
The climate crisis will also have an even greater impact on global migration flows in the future.
Indirect consequences of the climate crisis, such as pest infestation, economic downturn and political instability, would also drive millions of people into extreme poverty.
By 2030, 118 million people living on less than $ 1.90 a day would be affected by drought, flooding, or extreme heat.
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In 2020, an estimated 1.2 million people were displaced by storms and floods, according to the report.
The WMO estimates that sub-Saharan Africa would have to spend $ 30 to 50 billion annually on adaptation measures to avert even worse consequences.
However, they are not among the biggest contributors to the climate crisis: the people on the African continent are responsible for less than four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
vki / dpa / Reuters