Region could facing climate refugee crisis
Threat to maize crops in region, livestock in Botswana
shain.germaner@inl.co.za
SCORCHING temperatures that could collapse southern Africa’s maize crops and Botswana’s livestock farming sector may be some of the climate change “triggers” that could potentially influence the largescale movement of people to cities and across borders in the region.
This is according to Francois Engelbrecht, the principal researcher and research group leader for climate studies, modelling and environmental health at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
He was part of a discussion this week, organised by the Water Research Commission (WRC), on climate-induced migration in southern Africa.
Engelbrecht’s talk focused on typical climate change induced tipping points in Africa that could potentially induce large migration of people.
However, he stressed that climate change was often an additional stress factor in systems that were already stressed. “Climate change sometimes induces a tipping point in a system,” he said.
“…In the first place in Africa, we’re looking at very drastic increases in temperature The summer of 2015/2016 was the warmest ever recorded. In South Africa, temperature increases of 2ºC to 3ºC have already occurred over the past century. On top of that comes these big, frequent heatwave events.
“The most vulnerable systems are rain-fed subsistence farming. The maize crop is projected to be under increasing pressure from climate change.
“Some models project the total collapse of the maize crop under a six degree warmer temperature.
“If you’re a subsistence farmer and your crop fails two or three years in a row, you have no choice but to go to the city. That’s one big potential cause of migration.”
The second was livestock, which was already a “huge burning point” in Botswana. “This is because, already when they have big droughts, we see tens of thousands of die-offs of cattle.
“Now imagine a future world where every day is six degrees warmer than it would be. That actually means every day we exceed the critical threshold for cattle to be affected in terms of mortality. When the temperature exceeds 37ºC, basically, it’s life threatening for cattle.
“You’re looking at a potential collapse of cattle farming in Botswana.”
In these warm parts of Botswana and Northern Cape, it could represent another potential trigger of large-scale migration. “It’s at least a complete change in your way of life. That’s another critical tipping point that may be exceeded in the current century.”
Even if rainfall remained roughly constant, increasing temperatures would lessen soil moisture because of evaporation. “It’s likely if the climate change future is likely to be one of low mitigation towards the end of the century, the staple food won’t be locally produced maize… and they may not have a significant cattle industry left in the Northern Cape and in Botswana.”
By 2020, the UN projects 50 million environmental refugees fleeing “untenable” environmental conditions such as rising sea levels, desertification and shrinking freshwater supplies in the developing world.
But George Kuchio, the senior regional protection officer in southern Africa for the UNHCR, said there was no protection for them under the UN, noting that globally there was “little appetite” to take in refugees.
Dr Inga Jacobs-Mata, a principal researcher at the CSIR, is leading the new WRC project to probe the impact of environmental refugees and climate-induced migration in South Africa.
“Statistics are telling us that one billion people will be displaced because of environmental reasons by 2050. Between 2008 and 2015, 26 million people were displaced by environmental disasters each year.”