Climate Change Awareness Zambia

In March 2021, Zambia held an event to launch its National Climate Change Learning Strategy. This was an important step towards mainstreaming climate literacy within the country and ramping up climate action.

Climate change: Global temperature could be warmest on record in one of the next five years, Met Office warns.

The chance of the global average temperature exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in one of the next five years is now about 50:50 (48%), according to a new Met Office study.

The Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, which was produced with the World Meteorological Organisation, also showed a 93% chance that the five-year average global temperature for 2022-2026 will be higher than the average for the last five years (2017-2021).

Dr Leon Hermanson, from the Met Office who led today's report, said: "Our latest climate predictions show that continued global temperature rise will continue, with an even chance that one of the years between 2022 and 2026 will exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

"A single year of exceedance above 1.5C does not mean we have breached the iconic threshold of the Paris Agreement, but it does reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5°C could be exceeded for an extended period."

In 2021, the global average temperature was 1.1C above the pre-industrial baseline, according to the provisional WMO report on the State of the Global Climate.The final report will be released on 18 May.

Meanwhile, back-to-back La Niña events at the start and end of 2021 had a cooling effect on global temperatures, but this was only temporary and will not reverse the long-term global warming trend.
Any development of an El Niño event would immediately fuel temperatures, as it did in 2016, which is currently the warmest year on record.

Professor Steven Sherwood, an ARC Laureate Fellow at the ARC Centre for Climate System Science and UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, said: "This report is looking at year-on-year natural variations in global-mean temperature (due for example to El Nino cycles) and the chance that in the near future a single warm year might pop above the Paris target warming threshold, which is a significant possibility.

"However, if that happened it would not mean that we exceeded the target, because the target refers to the underlying average temperature with year-on-year natural variability excluded.

"In other words, to actually exceed the target we'd have to be above 1.5C even in a "normal" year, and that is much less likely. But the report reminds us that we are getting uncomfortably close to this target."

Dr Andrew King, a lecturer in Climate Science at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne, added: "This update highlights how fast we are warming the planet. It's only six and a half years since the Paris Agreement was adopted and we're already seeing forecasts that we may experience brief exceedance of the 1.5°C global warming limit in the near future.

"While the Paris Agreement is about keeping global warming well below 2°C and preferably below 1.5°C in the long-term, the possibility of surpassing the 1.5°C threshold, even if only for a year, is worrying.

Sky News:

WHY SAVING BIODIVERSITY
STABILIZES THE CLIMATE

Nearly every ecosystem, tree, and animal helps produce
Earth’s climate. And right now, the extinction crisis
exacerbates the climate crisis. Protecting and restoring
nature is the biggest step we can take toward stabilizing
the climate emergency.

Zambia has been experiencing adverse impacts of climate change - including an increase in frequency and severity of seasonal droughts, occasional dry spells, increased temperatures in valleys, flash floods and changes in the growing season. In response to these impacts, Zambia is working to develop sustainable and appropriate programmes for both crops and livestock in the face of climate change. Some of Zambia's adaptation measures include: promotion of irrigation and efficient use of water resources, strengthening early warning systems and preparedness, and using GIS/remote sensing in mapping of drought and flood prone areas.

Zambia is a landlocked Sub-Saharan African country sharing boundaries with Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe (MTENR, 2002). It belongs to the Least Developing Countries (LDC) and has a total surface area of about 752,614 km2 and lies between 8 ° and 18 °south latitudes and longitudes 22 °and 34 ° east.

Zambia’s population in 2000 was 9.8 million with a growth rate of 2.4% between 1990 and 2000 according to the Central Statistics Office. About 39.2% of the population lives in the urban areas making Zambia one of the highly urbanized countries within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Compared to its neighbors, Zambia’s life expectancy of 36 years was the lowest in 2003 perhaps due to impacts of the structural adjustment programme (SAP) adopted by Government in 1991 and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

UNDP

What have tomatoes got to do with climate change?
Tomato prices in Kenya have skyrocketed in recent weeks, with some parts of the country paying up to seven times more.

The price rises follow months of heavy rains across East Africa. But could climate change be contributing to the problem?

The BBC’s Mercy Juma reports from the farmlands in Kenya.

ABOUT 1,000 households are threatened by hunger in Chama district because of floods currently being experienced.

“Areas in Chief Mulilo and Chibale in Chama North are also flooded

Source:Zambia Daily Mail

A growing number of communities—both coastal and inland—are finding themselves underwater. Extreme weather, sea level rise, and other climate change impacts are increasingly to blame. Here’s a look at what links flooding and our warming world.

Floods are the most common (and among the most deadly) natural disasters in the World They have brought destruction to every state and nearly every county, and in many areas they are getting worse. As global warming continues to exacerbate sea level rise and extreme weather, our nation’s floodplains are expected to grow by approximately 45 percent by century’s end.

What is a flood?
A flood is the accumulation of water over normally dry land. It’s caused by the overflow of inland waters (like rivers and streams) or tidal waters, or by an unusual accumulation of water from sources such as heavy rains or dam.

Plantations of trees is important as they improve the life and fulfil essential needs of mankind. During photosynthesis, the trees breakdown food materials and consume carbon dioxide. Resultantly with the help of sunlight, the trees produce carbohydrates. Moreover, trees support life by providing habitat to different species such as squirrels, bees and birds. Trees cleanse the climate by absorbing carbon dioxide from the environment and releasing oxygen. The trees cool the environment through their leaves by absorbing the sun heat. Thus, there occurs cooling in the atmosphere. The trees provide shades to houses and streets

SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL WARMING
How to stop climate change?

Climate experts are formal: the earth is warming up at a steady pace. The reason for this is the increase in human-caused greenhouse gases, which has led to health, ecological and humanitarian crises.
Despite this, the fight against climate change is a
real opportunity to transition to a low carbon society, creating jobs, innovation and social justice locally and internationally.