Madagascar is experiencing a famine entirely caused by climate change for the first time

Madagascar is experiencing a famine entirely caused by climate change for the first time
Madagascar is experiencing a famine entirely caused by climate change for the first time
Anonim

Residents of Madagascar were on the verge of starvation due to four years of extremely low rainfall. According to the United Nations (UN), this is the first famine caused solely by the effects of climate change.

Due to poor harvest, people have to eat cactus leaves and insects.

According to the UN, the number of people living in "catastrophic" conditions of the fifth level - the most serious category of risk - could reach 28,000 by October, and 110,000 children face the prospect of malnutrition and "irreversible damage" to their growth and development.

Although Madagascar experiences frequent droughts, experts believe that the current crisis is directly related to greenhouse gas emissions.

The main injustice is that Madagascar accounts for less than 0.01% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As UN Coordinator Issa Sanogo notes, “communities suffer daily from the disastrous consequences of a crisis they did not create”.

Residents of the south of the country have always relied on reliable monsoon rains to grow their crops, however, changes in weather conditions have made the rainfall increasingly erratic. The lack of harvest, which the people of Madagascar have been experiencing for four years, has led to people having to feed on cactus leaves and insects in order to survive.

According to Shelley Takral, spokesman for the UN World Food Program, the situation will only get worse in the future, as “there are less than two months left until the next planting season, and forecasts for food production are bleak. The earth is covered with sand; no water and little chance of rain"

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