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Welcome back to From a Climate Correspondent for a new year. We're delighted to have you! Strap in for what promises to be another make or break year for climate action across the globe. We'll be bringing you a fresh perspective from a different region each week.
This week's dispatch comes from Mat Hope, a journalist from London, UK, now based in Nairobi, Kenya. We hope you enjoy reading and, as always, welcome any feedback, thoughts and comments. Get in touch on reporter@climatecorrespondent.com
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From a Climate Correspondent team - India, Jocelyn, Lou and Mat
Kenya's Unseasonable Rain
Letter no. 4 by Mat Hope in Nairobi, Kenya
The aftermath of a flooding event in Nairobi's Muruku slum, December 2016 - Photo by Lou Del Bello
I may live in Nairobi but I maintain many British sensibilities -- so I am of course going to take advantage of my first FaCC dispatch from East Africa to talk about the weather.
In the UK, complaining about the drizzle is something of a national sport. But in Kenya, during this season’s supposed ‘short rains’, the matter is altogether more serious.
Kenya has two rainy seasons. These are consistent enough that the literal translation of one of the Swahili names for ‘Spring’ and ‘Autumn’ are ‘heavy rains’ (‘mvua nyingi’) and ‘short rains’ (‘mvua chache’). Not this year.
The short rains generally occur in mid-November and are named as such because they normally only last a few weeks, after which the arid conditions return. This year they have lasted much, much longer than usual, with heavier downpours. It rained on Christmas Day. It rained on New Year’s Day. It has rained almost every day, for 3 months.
The unseasonable rain has led to serious crop losses, the tourist industry going haywire, and deaths.
Kenya’s agriculture contributes about a third of the country’s GDP, and most of it is rain-fed. December’s downpours mean crops planted to fit with a consistent climatic schedule have been flooded, grazing grounds lost and livelihoods destroyed. The price of maize has risen sharply again -- putting pressure on tiny household budgets where the staple food is ugali (a polenta-style porridge made by mixing water and maize flour).
Combine this with the long rains failing to materialise in some of the driest parts of the country earlier this year, and it adds up to a major long-term food security and economic problem.
Rainy season
Tourism has also been affected. Kenya’s tourism industry contributes about 10% of the country's GDP, with that figure projected to grow. Much of this is eco-tourism, with communities rewarded for protecting Kenya’s astonishing wildlife. But that’s all at risk if the seasons continue to be changeable.
This Christmas, many of Kenya’s world famous National Parks had to close access roads and airstrips.
One lodge owner I spoke to in Mount Kenya region was in the midst of working two consecutive 20-hour days with a team of half a dozen labourers to try and maintain his site’s one bridge. A river bank had burst thanks to prolonged heavy rainfall a hundred kilometers away in the Aberdare hills. For the days he couldn’t keep the bridge open, he had to rehouse guests in competitors’ lodges on the other side of the river.
The inaccessible bridge was a relatively small but costly problem, and offered a glimpse into a tough future for the industry in one of its busiest seasons. More than one guest was overheard saying they appreciated the lodge owner’s efforts but next time would come “when it wasn’t the rainy season”. “That’s meant to be now,” the owner sighed.
Inconsistent
Kenya’s cities are not insulated from the problem. Every time it rains, the open drains (and, in some places, sewers) outside my apartment spill over, flooding the streets on which people walk and through which embassy-workers’ Land Cruisers splash. Houses have collapsed, and there remain fears of a cholera outbreak.
One estimate puts Kenya’s death toll at 120, with over 160,000 people affected. That was more than a month ago, and the rains are only now starting to abate.
The billion Shilling question is -- is this a freak occurrence or will it be like this again? The science on how East Africa’s rains are affected by climate change is not yet clear. The rainfall is linked to the Indian Ocean Dipole, which is the equivalent of the more well-known Pacific El Niño and La Niña, but only discovered in 1999. And researchers are still studying how this interacts with warming oceans.
But the taxi drivers, lodge owners, smallholders and journalists I speak to are all convinced climate change (combined with poor infrastructure, and misguided natural resource management) is at least partly to blame. The rains have been so inconsistent in recent years that something major has changed. They are convinced of it.
It’s not meant to be like this. Renaming the seasons would be the least of the country’s problems if inconsistent rains become the norm.
Must reads from the region
Current flooding in Kenya is emblematic of climate change - Martin Macharia Kuria, Daily Nation An engineer calls on Kenya’s government to do much more to prevent future flooding. He acknowledges the role growing emissions elsewhere are playing in driving heavy rainfall, but argues Kenya’s development codes also need to be revised to “take cognisance of flood risk and climate change”. Sustainable development is “our gift,” he says.
'No Safety Net.' How Climate Change and Unprecedented Flooding Is Destroying Communities in the Central African Republic - Suyin Haynes and Adrienne Surprenant, Time Magazine This haunting photo essay captures what it’s like to live in a country without sufficient infrastructure to deal with heavy flooding. One portrait subject that housed 50 displaced people told the photographer “I can’t just stare at the people staying homeless. That’s why I opened my doors to them, so that they can sleep well, and that everyone has at least a small space.”
‘Climate crisis is environment apartheid - Sellina Nkowani, The Nation While Greta captured most of the headlines from COP25, youth activists from across the world stood in solidarity to express their frustration at the ongoing lack of international action to tackle the climate crisis. Hilda Flavia Nakabuye from Uganda told the conference, “We are suffering severe effects of climate change as if coming from the global south is a mortal sin with no or very little action from developing countries. I have come to think that climate crisis is another form of environmental racism and apartheid.”
Al-Cardinal: South Sudan's Original Oligarch - The Sentry South Sudan’s oil is being used to support those accused of war crimes, according to this investigative report from The Sentry, a nonprofit that “follows the dirty money connected to African war criminals”. Released in October last year, it focuses on businessman Ashraf Seed Ahmed Hussein Ali, who it claims was offered more than three million barrels in crude oil in 2017 in exchange for “undisclosed goods and services” to the South Sudanese government.
What else I've been reading...
Tanzania journalist Erick Kabendera to spend Christmas in jail - BBC News
In a stark reminder of the dangers faced by journalists in the region, it was reported that investigative journalist Erick Kabendera had been charged with money laundering, tax evasion and leading organised crime. Amnesty International described his arrest as "an assault on press freedom". Kabendera’s detention follows two reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International (both well worth reading) in October 2019 that criticised the increasingly oppressive conditions being imposed on journalists in Tanzania.
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