Kenya

It takes only twenty days for the average Canadian to produce as much greenhouse gases as the average Kenyan will produce over the course of the entire year.  Therefore, January 20th (twenty days into the year) is "Climate Change Impacts in Kenya Day."

In Kenya, warming temperatures are projected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as heavy rain storms, flooding, drought, fires, hurricanes, tropical storms and El Niño events.  These extreme weather events are expected to increase the risk of future disease outbreaks, such as malaria epidemics, and have serious effects on agriculture and tea production.

Regional fluctuations in lake levels is an impact of climate change already being seen in Kenya. For example, “In 1997, floods and high rainfall, triggered by an El Niño event in eastern Africa, resulted in a surface rise of 1.7 meters in Lake Victoria and disrupted agricultural production and pastoral systems.”  Meanwhile, in “the same year that the waters were rising in Lake Victoria, El Niño triggered a severe drought in another location in Kenya, significantly decreasing hydro-electric power output, limiting the availability of electricity to East Africans.”

For more details on climate change impacts in Kenya, see WWF’s report, Climate Change Impacts on East Africa.