Uganda
Climate change impacts
It takes only eighteen days for the average Canadian to produce as much greenhouse gases as the average Ugandan will produce over the course of the entire year. Therefore, January 18th (eighteen days into the year) is "Climate Change Impacts in Uganda Day."
“Climatic changes are happening in Uganda. On the one hand there is more erratic rainfall in the March to June rainy season, bringing drought and reductions in crop yields and plant varieties; on the other hand the rainfall, especially in the later rains towards the end of the year, is reported as coming in more intense and destructive downpours, bringing floods, landslides and soil erosion.”
While many world leaders have agreed in principal to a 2 degree limit on global warming, “a 2 degrees temperature rise would probably wipe out most of Uganda’s coffee production, upon which some five million people rely directly or indirectly, and which earns the country several hundred million dollars a year.”
For more information about the impacts of climate change on agriculture, pastoralism and health and water, see the Oxfam GB report, 'Turning up the Heat: Climate change and poverty in Uganda'.
Story
“My name is Mbiwo Constatine Kusebahasa. I was born in 1938 to the Bakonjo tribe, a hardy and friendly people in the Rwenzori Mountains. I have a wife and children.
I am a farmer on the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains. I started farming around 1954; we would plant our crops and get good harvest. We grow maize, beans, sweet potatoes, cassava, and vegetables. However, starting in the 1970’s, I started to notice gradual changes in our environment. ”
Read the rest of Mbiwo’s story at WWF's Climate Witness page.
Credit: climatewitness
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