Joint study calls for major investments in climate change adaptation to reduce the risk of conflict and forced migration
Durban, 5 December 2011
– New evidence of changing
climate trends in the Sahel and West Africa and their potentially
profound implications for food security and regional stability has been
released today at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Durban, adding to the pressure on governments to stay
on a course to reach a new international climate agreement.
A
joint study has
analysed regional trends in temperature, rainfall, droughts and flooding over the past 40 years and
their implications for the availability of natural resources, livelihoods, migration and conflict in 17 West African countries
from the Atlantic coast to Chad.
The analysis
detects
significant changes in regional climatic conditions, including an
overall rise in mean seasonal temperature from 1970 to 2006 of
approximately 1
°C,
with a greater increase of between 1.5°C to 2°C observed in far eastern Chad and northern Mali and Mauritania.
The
study shows that the frequency of floods and the area covered by
flooding have increased in parts of the region over the past 24 years,
for example with large areas of southern Burkina Faso, western Niger
and northern Nigeria experiencing up to 10 floods during this period.
The report,
Livelihood Security: Climate Change, Migration and Conflict in the Sahel,
uses an innovative mapping process to identify 19 "climate
hotspots" where climatic changes have been the most severe and which
warrant focused adaptation planning and other follow-up activities.
Press release
