El Salvador

It only takes 29 days for the average Canadian to produce as much greenhouse gases as the average Salvadoran will produce over the course of the entire year.  Therefore, January 29th (29 days into the year) is "Climate Change Impacts in El Salvador Day."

“In El Salvador, climate change appears to have passed from scientific discussion to harsh reality. In October 2005, Tropical Storm Stan luckily dipped below hurricane strength before it reached El Salvador. Previous weeks, though, saw Category 5 hurricanes in the Caribbean.  Although absolute cause and effect cannot be shown between individual events and broad climate change trends, over the past 20 years, the El Niño and La Niña events are bigger, droughts are more severe, and hurricanes are stronger. Tropical storm Stan brought with it a record volume of rainfall. The small streams that cross the city of San Salvador broke their banks, taking with them houses and vehicles. One stream in particular, known as ‘El Garrobo’, so small that it dries up for several months of the year, carried so much water that it left houses in a number of suburbs totally submerged, some of which were not just flooded but destroyed in the process.”

For more information on climate change impacts in El Salvador, continue reading “Up in smoke? Latin America and the Caribbean: The threat from climate change to the environment and human development” from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development.