Climate change crisis needs urgent action, say scientists
A preliminary assessment of the damage by the Kenya Wildlife Service shows that almost a quarter of the conservancy, which is 49,000 acres, was damaged by the inferno.
PRETORIA, July 28 (ANA) – Thousands of scientists have repeated calls for urgent action to tackle the climate emergency, warning that several tipping points are now imminent, Al Jazeera reports on Wednesday.
The news channel said more than 14,000 scientists have signed an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, adding that governments have failed consistently to address the overexploitation of the Earth.
Climate change has resulted in unprecedented climate-related disasters, causing floods, heatwaves and devastating cyclones.
In June, more than 230 deaths were reported in Canada’s province of British Columbia after a historic heatwave brought record-high temperatures.
In July, floods that wreaked havoc in Western Europe were recorded as the worst natural disaster to occur in more than half a century after leaving more than 180 people dead and thousands missing.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), some parts of the continent received up to two months’ worth of rainfall in two days on soils that were already near saturation.
According to United Nation Climate Change, changing precipitation patterns and extreme weather are a threat to human health and safety, food and water security and socio-economic development in Africa.
“Climate change is having a growing impact on the African continent, hitting the most vulnerable hardest, and contributing to food insecurity, population displacement and stress on water resources,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Climate change may also threaten political and economic stability in situation where communities and nations struggle to access scarce water resources or when forced migration puts previously separate groups into conflict over the same resources.
Human activity is the main cause of climate change, which results from burning fossil fuels and converting land from forests to agriculture. Africa is the lowest contributor in carbon emissions, and yet suffers the most.
This year March, the World Bank has indicated that climate change has not slowed down and its connection with human wellbeing and poverty is increasingly visible.
“Unchecked, it will push 132 million people into poverty over the next 10 years, undoing hard-won development gains.
“The most vulnerable countries are at particularly high risk of seeing their existing health systems overloaded or wiped out, having emergency funds depleted and replenishment more challenging in a constrained fiscal space, and, facing rising economic vulnerabilities of people and communities,” the World Bank said.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Naomi Mackay
