Africa is home to one eighth of the entire world’s population.  It is a continent full of people suffering from HIV\AIDS, malnutrition, poverty, and war.  Furthermore, less than 50% of the population of Africa have access to safe water.[1] The last thing a continent already ravaged with humanitarian and environmental problems needs is the looming threat of dangerous climate change that global warming presents.

Just what is “dangerous climate change?” Bill Hare described some of the social factors of dangerous climate change in his peer-reviewed journal article “What is Dangerous Climate Change?” as depopulation of sovereign island countries, additional millions of people at risk from water shortage, malaria, hunger, and coastal flooding, destabilization of international order by environmental refugees and emergence of conflicts, and world impacts exceeding what national GDP’s can handle.  And these are just a few of the dangers of global warming, all of which Africa, a continent already suffering from lack of clean water and arable land, must be extra aware of.  So what exactly is in store for Africa, and why should we care?  The reasons we should care are easy, we should care because the countries of Africa will be some of the first and hardest hit by the changing climate caused by global warming.  The rest of the world will feel pulled to take care of people displaced by climate catastrophe as well as be able to look to Africa as a predictor of what is ahead.

Answering the question, what is in store for Africa, is a bit more complicated however.  In her article, “Climate change, coming home: global warming's effects on population,” in World Watch Journal, Sarah Deweerdt describes sparse rainfall in Sahel, an area in Africa along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert.  This area has experienced many long droughts, thus to combat these droughts the local government decided to build dams to trap rainfall.  These dams were then connected to irrigation systems.  Shortly there after harvests increased, as did cases of malaria due to the breeding grounds the dams created for mosquito’s.  This scenario is a glimpse into the future for the rest of the world, a “view of how global climate change can play havoc with populations’ lives and livelihoods,” [2] Deweerdt says. Clearly, Africa has already begun to suffer from climate change, so what is really in store for the future?

Most scientists agree that as climate change persists things will continue to not look good for Africa.  Ochieng Ogodo wrote in the Multinational Monitor that experts from all over the world agree that Africa is area of the world consistently the hardest hit by climate change.  In fact, if current global warming trends continue, the continent is predicted to face a number of catastrophe’s.  In less than one generation 40 percent of the wildlife in Africa could be lost, Ogodo reported, and the cereal crops could be reduced by 5 percent.  It has also been reported, Ogodo warned, that a third of Africa’s coastal settlements could be wiped out this century by rising sea levels which would threaten the lives of up to 70 million people.  Reporters for The Economist seemed to share concern for global warming’s affect on Africa stating that, “climate change may have a graver effect on Africa than on any other continent.”[3]  The Economist also noted however that there are two parts to the gloomy scenario for Africa, one being that the dry lands will completely dry up and the coastal lands will flood, and the other being that some parts of Africa will actually benefit from global warming.  For example, the highland areas of Africa could see increased rainfall.  Overall however, the scenario does not look good for Africa.  Soaring temperatures, drought in already dry areas, floods on the coasts, devastation of grazing areas for cattle and farming lands have all been predicted to varying levels of calamity.  What is a continent to do then, who in comparison to the rest of the world, contributes very little to the CO2 emissions  known to heavily contribute to global warming?

A few examples can be offered here.  The Economist suggest African politicians begin to show more concern for global warming which will have such grave effects on their continent.  It is difficult though to focus on the future of global warming when attempting to encourage development in a struggling continent.  Despite this fact, measures can be taken to use whatever aid is given for development in African countries in ways that least harm the environment.  The lack of existing infrastructure in Africa could be a blessing in this way, as many African countries have the chance as they develop to build more eco-friendly infrastructures.  This is sadly unlikely however as Richard Manning pointed out in his article “Africa’s Next Green Revolution,” Africa is home to a billion and a half of the worlds poorest individuals, and money is needed to build eco-friendly habitats.  A more likely suggestion for Africa would be to at very least hold on to what it has now.  A strong attempt needs to be made not to allow existing land to be over farmed or over grazed.  Furthermore, as The African Review of Business and Technology points out more attention can be paid to keeping existing water reservoirs in good standing.  This can be done by handling the sedimentation problem that exists in many of Africa’s large dam-held reservoirs.  In addition to this, The African Review of Business and Technology notes that these reservoirs can provide great opportunities for local research and restoration programs.

In the end, global warming is a looming crisis that the entire world will suffer from, not just the continent of Africa.  Given that industrialized nations pollute the most[4] and that industrialized nations have a corner stone on the worlds wealth citizens of the world must look to them to begin evoking real and serious measures in the fight to protect our environment.