Drought Could Displace 700 Million In Africa
As climate and ecological breakdown worsens, parts of the Earth will become uninhabitable. Droughts, floods, and extreme weather events will lead to crop failure, and clean drinking water will become increasingly scarce. This will lead to mass migration, forcing people to either relocate within their own country or seek refuge in another country.
Most climate refugees, who did the least to cause this crisis, will be from the global south and forced to seek refuge in the global north, with our lives excess being the main drivers of climate and ecological breakdown.
Read a roundup of the headlines:
“The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report was released Monday, focusing on the impacts of climate change, as well as the vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities of both the environment and society. Chapter 9 of the report provides a regional analysis for Africa, projecting much worse climate change conditions than we are currently seeing ravage the continent.
“By 2030, about 250 million people may experience high water stress in Africa, with up to 700 million people displaced as a result — IPCC
Seven hundred million people. For context the entire population of Africa is 1.4 billion. That means by 2030 half the continent of Africa could be displaced as a result of climate change.
This dire warning of displacement comes at a time when many African nations are already witnessing record breaking droughts even today.
The south-western provinces of Angola are currently in their fifth consecutive year of a devastating drought. A drought which the World Food Programme has identified as the worst to hit the country in 40 years. Among those most impacted are rural communities relying on subsistence agriculture for their survival.
With failed harvests and no grazable land for their animals, 1.58 million people are facing extreme levels of food insecurity. This has forced thousands to flee to other provinces and across borders to neighboring Namibia, with some walking for days over 100 miles on foot.”
Climate-refugees.org, Latest IPCC Report Projects Climate Change Will Increase Migration Within Africa
“More than 1 billion people face being displaced within 30 years as the climate crisis and rapid population growth drive an increase in migration with “huge impacts” for both the developing and developed worlds, according to an analysis.
The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a thinktank that produces annual global terrorism and peace indexes, said 1.2 billion people lived in 31 countries that are not sufficiently resilient to withstand ecological threats.
“This will have huge social and political impacts, not just in the developing world, but also in the developed, as mass displacement will lead to larger refugee flows to the most developed countries,” Steve Killelea, the institute’s founder, said.
The Guardian, Climate crisis could displace 1.2bn people by 2050, report warns
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