Weather patterns are becoming increasingly volatile and resulting in more droughts and floods, higher air and water temperatures. Sea levels are rising and coastal areas are eroding and experiencing saltwater intrusion and flooding. Lake Chad, once the sixth largest lake in the world and the second largest wetland in Africa has shrunk in the past 35 years to one tenth of its former size. The icecap on Mount Kilimanjaro is fast disappearing with serious implications for the rivers that depend on ice melt for their flow. Scientists estimate that there has been a reduction of about 82 per cent in the ice-cap since it was first surveyed in 1912. Likewise, the glaciers on the famous Ruwenzori Mountains, the so-called Mountains of the Moon, have shrunk by 50 per cent since the late 1980s. These decreases in both cases have been attributed largely to increased air temperature and decreased snow accumulation during the 20th century. If present rates of reduction continue, the ice-caps and glacier water reservoirs in Kilimanjaro and Ruwenzori will disappear within some two to three decades, with deleterious consequences for the dependent human livelihoods in the areas around these mountains and beyond.
Africa as a region is most vulnerable to climate change due to extreme poverty of many Africans and the heavy dependence on rainfall and other natural resources. Agriculture is the most important economic sector in most African countries. Because most of it is subsistence with high dependence on rainfall, it is highly vulnerable to changes in climate variability, seasonal shifts and precipitation patterns. The food security threat posed by climate change is particularly great, especially in the arid and semi arid Sudano- Sahel zone, Eastern and Southern African regions where in conjunction with the endemic threats of desertification, per capita food production has been steadily declining. As agricultural yields continue to drop by as much as half in some of these areas, other sources of income needs to be found for people to meet their basic needs. Economic necessity and competition for access to resources are already resulting in displacement, mass movement of people within countries and across borders, heightened social tensions and in many cases, conflicts. It has been argued that increased competition over land was one of the triggers of conflicts in Darfur in Western Sudan.
