Last January, meteorological experts warned that the Horn of Africa was on the verge of severe drought.
“So no one can say that we didn’t know. It was known, including by policymakers. The fact of the matter is that perhaps priorities were given to something else. And therefore, one has to face the fact that policy failures are here very much at stake,” he said.
And that wasn’t the first warning. The UNCCD official says a warning was issued as far back as 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
N’Diaye said, “Go back to the IPCC report. It was clearly stated by scientists that have studied the issue of climate change that for nearly 10 years areas that are prone to drought – and we are talking about areas like those in the Horn of Africa – will experience more frequent droughts and more intense droughts of a much wider distance. And near droughts will emerge where they never existed before. This is in the IPCC report.”
Has time run out?
Now that drought has firmly taken hold in the Horn of Africa, with famine in parts of Somalia, is it too late to act?
“We cannot say that it’s too late,” he said, “because we have the knowledge as to what is it that one should do to better manage land, including in the dry lands. And therefore the UNCCD is there to facilitate, particularly in countries like those in Africa, precisely the implementation of their action programs to combat desertification.”
最新
2013-11-27
2013-11-27
2013-11-27
2013-11-27
2013-11-27
2013-11-27