MOVIE: HOTSPOTS - Africa Speaks up on Climate Change

The scientists in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) state without a doubt that no continent will be hit harder by climate change than Africa. Their prediction: rising temperatures and a rise in extreme weather anomalies. Farmer and environmentalist Mulualem Birhane and his neighbours found out long ago what that means for the every day lives of Africans. In Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, almost all farmers rely solely on weather conditions for their harvest. "We used to have a fixed rainy season, but for some years now, it's been unreliable - sometimes, the rainy season doesn't come, sometimes the rain is too heavy or too late," says Mulualem.

In autumn 2007, 42,000 people lost their homes just an hour's drive from Dembecha because of severe floods. In 2006, 900 people died, hundreds of thousands lost everything they owned due to the most severe floods in decades. Mulualem is sure: "It is because of climate change that the weather is going crazy." The effects of climate change occur in a place where nature has already been harmed. Ecological degradation, caused by the destruction of nature by man, is thus going further.

In Chinguetti, a caravan town in the North of Mauritania, climate change has another impact. While life in the new town is bustling, hardly anyone lives in the old town on the other side of the wadi. Saif Islam is one of the few who remain. He is the youngest of a family which has been safeguarding ancient writings and books in their private library. Such libraries are one of the reasons why Unesco has declared Chinguetti a World Heritage Site. But it is unclear if the writings will see another decade. The Unesco committee on world heritage warned in a report published at the end of 2006: "Antique sites have been built for a specific micro climate. Climate change is threatening their future existence."

Saif Islam knows well that the climate in Chinguetti has indeed changed. He notices how paper disintegrates because the temperature has been rising constantly since the early 1990s. Because it's getting hotter and drier, the dunes are closing in faster than they used to. Much of Chinguetti's old town has been encroached by the rapidly moving sand. Around Saif Islam's library, a ring of sand has gathered. In the last few years, rare but heavy rainfalls have also begun to wash away the foundations of the old buildings. "Other buildings are falling apart, because the heat is destroying the soil on which they stand," says the Unesco Director General for Africa, Joseph Massaquoi. In the more and more extreme environment, Chinguetti and its cultural heritage are threatened with extinction.

In parts of Uganda, it is mostly children and the elderly who have to bear the brunt of Malaria which has spread faster than ever before because of climate change. "There was always Malaria here, but for some years now, the number of cases has been rising steadily," says the pediatrician Tom Ediamu. "In the long rainy season between September and November it has been raining much more than usual." Where water is collecting over these warm months, larvae of the Anopheles mosquitoe which spreads the disease can multiply faster and in greater numbers. The IPCC scientists have been watching similar developments all over Africa, since rainy seasons have shifted due to climate change. Because it is generally warmer, Malaria is even spreading to regions where it didn't exist before - like in the Ugandan highlands. "I come from Southwestern Uganda and I never had Malaria until I came to Kampala when I was 18," remembers Achilles Byaruhanga, director of Nature Uganda. He can't remember any cases of Malaria in his hometown at the foot of the Rwenzori Mountains. "Today, this same region is an endemic area for Malaria."

On Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, it is mostly the fishermen who suffer. In the past, they used to fish Tilapia and Nile perch, which had been introduced to the lake (with disastrous consequences) only 50 years ago. For quite some time now, the nets remain empty. Peter Mireri of Friends of Lake Victoria laments that the fish are vanishing. Shallow Lake Victoria is mostly filled with rainwater since there aren’t any major rivers that feed into it. But the rain has been scarce for some time, and the water is receding. "Additionally to the rain decreasing, it has become warmer: Thus the evaporation is higher than it used to be." That’s especially bad for the parts of the lake where fish are breeding - mostly parts of the lake close to the Kenyan shores. "The shallow water is heating up and the small fish are dying because there isn’t enough oxygen in the water."

Because there are not enough fish, in what was once the biggest port in Kisumu, the fishing boats are rotting. Many fishermen are only bringing charcoal from Uganda on the other side of the lake here. The loosers of the fish scarcity is also the population of Kisumu, which can't afford the fish anymore. The price has quadrupled in only two years. On the roadside, people are instead washing fishbones, the remains of the Nile perch once it has been filetted for export. The fishbones are dried and deep fried in hot fat. The bones and the little flesh on them are eaten with hot sauce or used for soup. This is all what remains for the people of the lake.

But despite all of these dire consequences, the signatories of the appeal "Africa speaks up on Climate Change" are not giving up. They work with all their might to stop further climate change from happening - and to allow Africa to adapt to the consequences already there. "The African governments have to pass laws against climate change now - after all, it's us Africans who are suffering," says Achilles Byaruhanga. And Wangari Maathai adds: "The industrialized nations have the same problems as we do, but they have the means to address them. What we want from them is to help us do the same: Fight further climate change and help us to adapt to the consequences already visible."