NAIROBI, Aug 07 (IPS) – Extreme weather events linked to climate change are threatening Kenya’s development agenda. Kenya contributes little to global warming, but the Development Bank classifies the country as a high-risk country. Kenya contributes less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions each year, but the Development Bank has classified the East African nation as a high-risk country. This is because extreme weather events are increasingly threatening the country’s development agenda, widening socio-economic inequalities and deepening rural poverty and hunger.
Climate change refers to long-term changes in temperature and weather patterns. Climate Risk Potential damages from climate change include financial, social, environmental and human loss. Country climate risk profiles summarize long-term climate trends and show how variability in weather patterns can affect lives and livelihoods.
Countries are encouraged to use these profiles to inform their development agendas, as otherwise the achievement of set development goals could be significantly derailed. For example, unpredictability in weather patterns has negatively impacted certain sectors of the Kenyan economy.
These include agriculture, tourism, horticulture, livestock and pastoralism, and forest products. Almost 98% of agriculture is rain-fed. Using climate risk projections, the country can reduce the impact of climate change on this sector by investing in irrigation, as about 75% of Kenyans make their living from agriculture.
Kenya’s Recent Climate Risk Profile It provides a summary of climate trends over a 20-year period from 1991 to 2020, showing that approximately 68% of Kenya’s natural disasters are caused by extreme weather events, mainly floods and droughts. The remaining 32% represent disease epidemics.
Frequent and intense droughts due to high temperatures
Overall, 16 droughts were recorded between 1991 and 2020, affecting millions of people and causing an estimated $1.5 billion in damage. Although floods are a recent phenomenon in Kenya, they are becoming more frequent, with 45 floods occurring during the same period. The drought pattern began to appear in 1975, while the flood pattern began to appear from 2012 to 2020.
Kenya loses about 3-5% of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) due to recurring patterns of drought and flood. Over the past 20 years, Kenya’s average annual temperature has been 24.2 degrees Celsius, with a high of 30.3 degrees Celsius and a low of 18.3 degrees Celsius.
To give you some perspective on Kenya’s average temperatures, 2023 was the hottest on record and 2024 is following suit. The average temperature in the capital city of Nairobi was milder than usual, with highs ranging from 24°C to 25°C and lows from 17°C to 18°C, an assistant professor of meteorology at the University of Nairobi told The Conversation.
“This is generally a very comfortable temperature. However, during December-January-February, the maximum temperature is usually higher, between 26°C and 27°C.
“This February, temperatures rose to 29-30 degrees Celsius, and even 31 degrees Celsius. That’s about 6 degrees higher than the normal temperature in Nairobi. That’s a big difference, and our bodies can’t help but feel the difference. If this rise continues for a long time, it can lead to a heat wave.”
Drought is Kenya’s most pressing and persistent problem. As recently as 1975, droughts occurred every 10 years. But as climate change has increased in both frequency and intensity, droughts have become less frequent, from 10 years to 5 years, and now 2-3 years.
Droughts and food shortages occur every year, and periods of severe drought recur regularly, leaving the country struggling to recover from one drought to the next.
History of Kenya’s drought cycle from 1991 to 2020
Droughts occur regularly. In Kenya, more than 1.5 million people were affected by a drought in 1991-1992. This was followed by another widespread drought cycle in 1995-1996, affecting at least 1.4 million people.
In January 1997, the government declared the drought a national disaster, affecting more than 2 million people, and the famine continued until 1998. Soon after, in 1999-2000, 4.4 million people were in dire need of food assistance due to severe famine. As far as natural disasters are concerned, this was declared the worst in the past 37 years.
The drought of 1998–2000 cost the country an estimated $2.8 billion, mainly due to crop and livestock losses, wildfires, damage to fisheries, reduced hydropower generation, reduced industrial production, and reduced water supplies.
A prolonged drought from March to June 2004 left more than 3 million Kenyans in need of emergency food assistance. In December 2005, the government declared the drought a national disaster, affecting at least 2.5 million people in northern Kenya alone.
The 2008 drought affected 1.4 million people, and a total of 10 million people were at risk of hunger after drought-related crop failures in late 2009 and early 2010. The severe and prolonged drought cost the country $12.1 billion in damages and losses, and more than $1.7 billion in recovery costs.
Kenya has 47 counties. Kenya’s arid and semi-arid (ASAL) regions account for 18-20 of the poorest counties, as only 20% of Kenya receives high and regular rainfall, and are particularly at risk during periods of severe dryness and prolonged drought.
The ASAL region has experienced three severe droughts between 2010 and 2020. The 2010–2011 period was the most severe and prolonged, affecting at least 3.7 million people, causing damage and losses of US$12.1 billion, and requiring over US$1.7 billion in recovery and reconstruction costs.
That cycle was followed by the drought of 2016-2017. The famine of 2020-2022 was the most severe, longest and most widespread, with more than 4.2 million people, or 24% of the ASAL population, facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Overview of natural disaster events in Kenya, 1991-2020
Kenya is enduring increasingly intense and heavy rainfall periods. During this period, a total of 45 floods occurred, directly affecting more than 2.5 million people and causing an estimated $137 million in damages. These events occurred in 1997, 1998, 2002, 2012 and 2020, and were short, frequent and intense.
Unlike droughts and famines, Kenya’s history of floods is much shorter. There were many consecutive drought seasons from 1991 to 1997. Since 1997, a pattern of floods has begun to emerge in this East African country.
It all started with the widespread and deadly El Niño floods of 1997-1998 that affected 1.5 million people. Then came the floods of 2002 that affected 150,000 people. Kenya has experienced floods almost every year since 2010.
Expected risks for the future
“From 2020 to 2050, the ASAL region is projected to receive steadily decreasing rainfall. Temperatures in the country are projected to rise by 1.7 degrees Celsius by 2050 and by a further 3.5 degrees Celsius before the end of the century. The amplification of climate change will increase our climate risks,” Mildred Ntiga, an independent climate change researcher in East Africa, told IPS.
“We will see much more frequent and destructive floods, followed by longer drought periods. We are already starting to see worrisome landslides and mudslides, and these will be an even bigger problem, especially in higher altitudes.”
It emphasizes that additional soil erosion and waterlogging of crops will have a significant impact on agricultural productivity, reducing yields and increasing food security. There will also be significant economic losses and serious damage to farmland and infrastructure.
Worse, as we have already witnessed in the recent deadly floods of 2024, the human toll will be devastating. This will deepen rural poverty and hunger and derail Kenya’s progress towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Note: This feature was published with the support of the Open Society Foundations.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal Source: Inter Press Service
