Swaziland
Climate change impacts
It takes only 39 days for the average Canadian to produce as much greenhouse gases as the average Swazi will produce over the course of the entire year. Therefore, February 8th (39 days into the year) is "Climate Change Impacts in Swaziland Day."
“Swaziland’s greenhouse gas emissions are so low as to make this southern African nation essentially carbon neutral. Unfortunately, this does not make Swaziland immune to climate change impacts. Swazis are expected to suffer greatly from a future of hotter temperatures, greater drought, and more extreme weather. However, events on the ground already signal that these changes are not part of some far off future scenario. This year, drought caused crop failures so severe that a state of natural disaster was declared by the government. Though climate change is clearly a daily feature of Swazis’ lives, and despite stark evidence of mounting impacts, leadership’s failure to prioritise the problem means little is being done to help Swazis adapt.”
For more information on climate change impacts in Swaziland, continue reading the Friends of the Earth International report, 'Climate Change: Voices from communities affected by climate change.'
Story
“Felix Matsebula, a subsistence farmer in Swaziland's eastern Lubombo region, near the Mozambique border, always suspected that the columns of smoke rising from the surrounding sugarcane plantations and blackening the sky were harmful to his crops, and a reason his harvests have been declining for years.
‘You hear about global warming and greenhouse gases. You can see for yourself how the sun is almost hidden by the smoke here,’ he said.”
Read further about the details of Felix’s story in IRIN Africa’s report.
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