Jobs at Risk as Climate Change Threatens Kenya's Tea Sector

Climate change is set to ravage tea production in Kenya, the biggest global supplier of the brew, threatening the livelihoods of millions of plantation workers, a report by British charity Christian Aid has warned. The report looked at how shifting temperatures and rainfall patterns in tea-growing regions in Kenya, India, Sri Lanka and China could affect the quality and yield of the world's most popular beverage. Tea is one of Kenya's top foreign currency earners, along with tourism and remittances, employing about three million people. But the East African country - which produces almost half the tea consumed in Britain - is likely to see the areas with optimal and medium tea-growing conditions shrink by about 25% and 40% respectively by 2050, the report has said. Kenya is highly vulnerable to climate change, with projections suggesting its average annual temperature will rise by up to 2.5 °C between 2000 and 2050, the report said.