Francis Mugerwa and Eve Mashoo
7 July 2009
Kampala — A new Oxfam report warns that multiple climate changes could reverse 50 years of work to end poverty.
"Shifting seasons are destroying harvests and causing widespread hunger - but this is just one of the multiple climate change impacts taking their toll on the world's poorest people," the report launched by Oxfam in Kampala, states.
The report; 'Suffering the Science - Climate Change, People and Poverty', is being published ahead of the G8 Summit in Italy, where climate change and food security are high on the agenda.
It combines the latest scientific observations on climate change and evidence from the communities Oxfam works with in almost 100 countries around the world, to reveal how the burden of climate change is already hitting poor people hard.
The report warns that without immediate action 50 years of development gains in poor countries will be permanently lost. "Climate-related hunger could be the defining human tragedy of this century" the report states in part.
According to the report, research based on interviews with farmers in 15 countries across the world, including Uganda and other African nations, reveals how once distinct seasons are shifting and rains are disappearing.
Farmers, no longer able to rely on generations of farming experience, are facing failed harvest after failed harvest.
The report adds that rice and maize, two of the world's most important crops on which hundreds of millions depend, particularly in Africa, Asia and the Americas , face significant drops in yields even under mild climate change scenarios.
According to the report, maize yields are forecast to drop by 15 per cent or more by 2020 in much of sub-Saharan Africa, and cereals by 50 per cent by 2080.
One estimate puts the loss to Africa at $2 billion a year.
The report added that diseases such as malaria and dengue fever that were once geographically bound are creeping to new areas where populations lack immunity or the knowledge and healthcare infrastructure to cope with them.
"It is estimated that climate change has contributed to an average of 150,000 more deaths from disease per year since the 1970s" the report says.
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