{"id":12367,"date":"2016-11-15T20:35:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T20:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=12367"},"modified":"2016-11-15T20:35:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-15T20:35:36","slug":"africa-flying-blind-as-continent-tips-into-climate-crisis-by-lou-del-bello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=12367","title":{"rendered":"Africa flying blind as continent tips into climate crisis by Lou Del Bello"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<div class=\"news-content\">\n<p><strong><span class=\"sumo_twilighter_highlighted twilighter-144d0274\"><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Africa-climate-change.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12368\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Africa-climate-change-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"africa-climate-change\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Africa-climate-change-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Africa-climate-change-272x182.jpg 272w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Africa-climate-change.jpg 550w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>A lack of data on African climate is slowing efforts to prepare for extreme weather, according to a new report which fills some of the gaps in Africa\u2019s regional climate science.<span class=\"sumo_twilighter_shares\">3<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Scientific evidence is the foundation of robust adaptation policies that tackle water management, energy and food security, the study says. Without it, the climate impacts that are already plunging Africa into a humanitarian crisis are poised to get much worse.<\/p>\n<p>But patchy weather records, most of which lay abandoned in meteorological offices and are unlikely to ever be digitised, make the African climate system among the planet\u2019s least understood.<\/p>\n<p>The study, produced by the Future Climate For Africa initiative, a joint program of the UK\u2019s Department for International Development (DFID) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), finds that while Africa is poised to get hotter and its weather more erratic, most government departments are only planning short term, therefore failing to respond to slow onset environmental changes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is difficult to model through computers, which makes predictions of future rainfall under climate change challenging,\u201d said\u00a0John Marsham, one of the authors at the University of Leeds, in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Although scientists know that both dry spells and heavy rainfall are likely to increase, whether some regions will get wetter or drier remains unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Marsham also said that poor funding and the fact that the data are rarely shared with the scientific community are deepening the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLong term decisions that do not account for climate change risk serious negative impacts\u201d Marsham said. \u201cWater supply, irrigation and drainage infrastructure built now need to be designed for the water availability, water needs and flood occurrence of the coming decades, as well as the present.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\"><\/div>\n<p>Countries are increasingly embracing preparedness, and initiatives for adaptation in agriculture often include climate risk in their agenda.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Adaptation of African Agriculture, presented at the UN climate talks in Marrakech this week, is one of the programs that builds on research and scientific evidence to devise practical solutions.<\/p>\n<p>It connects governments and farmers in fields such as soil management, agricultural water control, as well as risk management.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfrica, long neglected, can no longer be ignored. Today, it is an active, respected partner in the debate on global governance,\u201d said\u00a0Moroccan King Mohammed VI at the launch of the initiative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCooperation, which is already intense with many countries at the bilateral level, will be further expanded and revitalized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=11595&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<p>But to create a robust, long term climate response strategy, funding from developed countries needs to keep flowing.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sumo_twilighter_highlighted twilighter-7189506e\">Teresa Anderson, climate and resilience expert with ActionAid, said that every dollar invested in prevention and resilience saves seven dollars in humanitarian response.<span class=\"sumo_twilighter_shares\">1<\/span><\/span> \u201cBut donor countries prefer to wait until the crisis is in the news before responding to it, by which time is too late to make a real impact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said that rich nations should ramp up their financial contribution to climate response, and makes no concessions to the US President-elect who vowed to slash climate aid.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo country lives in a bubble, in a world where this year was the hottest ever recorded and 400 million people were affected by drought there is no space for climate denialism. The American people need to be aware that they live in the rest of the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Lou Del Bello\u2019s series of reports on\u00a0Africa and climate change is funded by CDKN. Source: http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=11595&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lack of data on African climate is slowing efforts to prepare for extreme weather, according to a new report which fills some of the gaps in Africa\u2019s regional climate science.3 Scientific evidence is the foundation of robust adaptation policies that tackle water management, energy and food security, the study says. Without it, the climate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[3276,3275],"class_list":["post-12367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-dfid","tag-natural-environment-research-council-nerc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Africa-climate-change.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-3dt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12369,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12367\/revisions\/12369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}