ENVIRONMENT - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Africa’s megacities threatened by heat, floods and disease – urgent action is needed to start greening and adapt to climate change

CITIES cover just 3% of the planet. But they emit 78% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, absorb 80% of final global energy (what consumers use) and consume 60% of clean drinking water. African megacities like Lagos, Nigeria (with 21 million residents) and Cairo, Egypt (with 10 million residents) are experiencing significant temperature increases due to the urban heat island effect and climate change. Meelan Thondoo is a medical anthropologist and environmental epidemiologist who researches the health impacts of climate change in cities of fast-developing countries. She explains what cities in Africa are doing to mitigate climate change, and what…

Apr

2024

By SUSANNE VETTER

Planting trees in grasslands won’t save the planet – rather protect and restore forests

ENVIRONMENT

TREE planting is one of the nature-based solutions being used to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Trees absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. Many of these tree-planting projects target Africa’s rangelands (open grasslands or shrublands used by livestock and wild animals). They include agroforestry initiatives such as the Great Green Wall in the Sahel, or commercial timber plantations that double as carbon offset projects. These target millions of hectares in countries like Mozambique, Madagascar and Rwanda., I am part of a team of ecologists and social scientists who are working to highlight the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists in 2026. Our goal…

Apr

2024

By BOUREIMA BALIMA and ABDEL-KADER MAZOU

Deadly heat in West Africa warns of climate change-driven scorchers to come

ENVIRONMENT

ON a hospital bed in Niger, a 96-year-old woman lay motionless attached to a drip - one of the thousands of possible victims of West Africa's worst heatwave in living memory, which a report said was linked to fossil fuel-driven climate change. In late March and early April, days and nights of extreme heat above 40° Celsius (104°F) gripped many West African countries. Temperatures soared so high in Mali and Burkina Faso that they equated to a once-in-200-year event, according to the report on the Sahel region by World Weather Attribution (WWA). The severity of the heatwave led WWA's team…

Apr

2024

By SANDISO MNGUNI

Fossil beetles found in a Botswana diamond mine help us to reconstruct the distant past

ENVIRONMENT

WHEN most people think of fossils they probably picture bones. But there’s much more to the global fossil record: plants, shells, minerals and insects. The study of fossil insects is called palaeoentomology. Palaeoentomologists like myself seek out and study fossil insects that were trapped in mud which later became rock sediments, and those found in amber (tree resin). Very few deposits containing either fossil plants or fossil insects, or both, have been found so far on the African continent, or in the southern hemisphere more broadly, particularly those dating back to the Cretaceous period, some 145 million to 66 million…

Apr

2024

By MELANIE MURCOTT and CLIVE VINTI

South Africa’s laws aren’t geared to protecting against climate change: judges are trying to fill the gap

ENVIRONMENT

SOUTH Africa has plenty of environmental laws but none that specifically oblige government officials to consider the risks and impacts of climate change when they approve new developments. In their research, environmental law experts Clive Vinti and Melanie Jean Murcott set out how judges are dealing with this gap in the law. What are the gaps in the law? The main gap is that no law specifically obliges companies establishing mines or building new developments like power stations to do a climate change assessment before they start construction. A climate change assessment would look at how a proposed development would…

Apr

2024

By NEIL D’CRUZE, ANGIE ELWIN and JENNAH GREEN

South Africa is to shut down captive lion farms. Experts warn the plan needs a deadline

ENVIRONMENT

THE South African government has officially confirmed that captive lion farms will be shut down. A new ministerial task team report just released has cemented the government’s intention, first made public in 2021, to put an end to African lions being legally sold and traded live, both internationally and domestically. It also heralds the end of “canned” trophy hunting, where lions are confined to an enclosed space and hunted down, with no chance of escape. We are wildlife researchers who have studied lion farming in South Africa. We believe that this latest development is a significant milestone in ending this…

Apr

2024

By YAW AGYEMAN BOAFO

Why is Ghana so hot this year? An expert explains

ENVIRONMENT

GHANA’s meteorological agency and the state’s health service have issued warnings about a period of very high temperatures expected in the first half of 2024 around the country. Ghana’s experience is part of a global phenomenon: record temperatures were recorded in 2023. Yaw Agyeman Boafo, the programmes coordinator and a senior research fellow at the University of Ghana’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Studies, answers some key questions. What is unusual about the weather in Ghana? Since the 1960s, Ghana has been getting warmer, with temperatures going up by about 1°C – a little over 0.2°C every ten years.…

Apr

2024

By YOLANDI ERNST and SALLY ARCHIBALD

Africa now emits as much carbon as it stores: landmark new study

ENVIRONMENT

A landmark new study has found that, in the last decade, the African continent has started emitting more carbon than it stores. When the total amount of carbon that is sequestered by natural ecosystems (such as the soil and plants in grasslands, savannas and forests) exceeds the amount of total carbon emissions within a system, it’s referred to as a net sink of carbon. But, the study found, as natural ecosystems are converted for agricultural purposes, the carbon storage capacity is decreasing – while the rate of emissions is increasing. Yolandi Ernst of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in…

Apr

2024

By BONFACE ORUCHO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Wind energy to help clean South Africa’s dirty carbon “hotspot”

ENVIRONMENT

PRIVATE wind energy projects for commercial and industrial purposes are ramping up the uptake of wind energy in South Africa while complementing clean energy's solar dominance to provide power for industries. Construction recently commenced on three wind sites to power Sasol’s Secunda industrial complex in Mpumalanga. The project is led by a consortium that includes Italian renewable energy developer Enel Green Power. The Secunda complex, which started commercial operations in 1990, is reportedly the biggest single-site carbon emitter globally, according to a 2020 Bloomberg report. “At 56.5 million tons of greenhouse gases a year, Secunda's emissions exceed the individual totals…

Apr

2024

By STEVEN MATHETSA

South Africa’s new energy plan needs a mix of nuclear, gas, renewables and coal – expert

ENVIRONMENT

SOUTH Africa’s economy has been hard hit by 15 years of load-shedding (rolling blackouts). The country’s coal-fired power plants have a maintenance backlog and frequently experience unexpected technical failures. On the other hand, South Africa has committed, under the Paris Agreement, to transition to low-carbon energy generation technologies by 2050. This puts South Africa at an energy crossroads where it needs well-thought-out policy development and implementation to make the transition possible. South Africa’s reliance on coal-fired power to supply about 72% of its energy needs is catching up with it as coal plants fail. But switching to renewable energy technologies…