Making climate change matter in one of the poorest countries in the world
New studies and national
institutes of disaster could pave the way for long term solutions rather than a
nationalistic undermining of climate change effects on daily Mozambique
life.
BY CAROLINE d'ESSEN
Talking about climate change in one of the 10 poorest
countries in the world, as Mozambique,
is not easy. Primarily, because a big part of the population cannoteven understand the meaning of this expression
and when they do so, most of the times they link it exclusively to general
environmental problems. The problem is that their understanding of environment
concerns is directly not related to their social problems.
It is merely
associated to nature and things like conservation of the forests and pollution.
Once climate change is fully comprehended, it is really hard to draw their attention
tootheraspects such as health, food and
habitation.
Therefore one of the biggest challenges for the ones who worry about
this subject is to change people’s mentality about climate change and show them
in practice how this phenomenon can affect their normal lives.
The instigation of The National Institute for Disaster
There is one institution that aims to do so, The National Institute for Disaster Management, more known
as (INGC). It is a public institution based in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital,
with juridical and administration autonomy, which aims is to prevent and
moderate natural calamities such as floods, cyclones, droughts, etc.
In the
last decade in Mozambique,
this kind of phenomenon attracted the attention of international organizations
working there. Events like the big flood of 2000 and the cyclone Favio in 2007 killed numerous people and left
them in more adverse conditions.
This is primarily the reason why in 2007 “Climate
Change” was already a subject that people were talking about in the country and
many different organizations were concerned about it.
By this time Rui Brito, a
Portuguese engineer working in Mozambique
as a professor in Faculdade de Agronomia e Engenharia Florestal (UEM), took his
sabbatical year at INGC. He joined Barbara van Logchem, a Dutch researcher, who
has been working long with INGC, and they started to organize a big team to
study climate change in Mozambique,
on account of the scarcity of material and studies.
Unique collaborations with NGO’s and International
Agencies leads to change
It
was through the INGC that Barbara and Rui started to collaborate with other
institutions and NGO's. GTZ, the German international cooperation, the
government of Denmark, United Nations (UNDP) and Cape University put all their
efforts together and provided the financial support and expertise necessary to
start the study.
New Studies
on impacts of Climate Change pave the way for a deeper understanding of
agricultural problems
The study entitled ‘Impacts of Climate Change on Disaster Risk in Mozambique’ took about
one year (May 2008-January 2009) to compile. The main objectives were to predict the extension of natural disasters by 2030 and 2060,
theplausible extreme scenarios and find
out the adaptation that is needed to reduce vulnerability to these impacts of
climate change.
It analyzed the past and future trends in the climate
of Mozambique.
The aspects that were researched were temperature, precipitation, natural
disasters, cyclone, sea level rise, changes in agricultural
land use and crop suitability, potential future changes in health, uncontrolled
fire and government response and role of the private sector.
Future woes and severe repercussions of climate change impacts
The
conclusion was that in the next 20 years, natural disasters will increase
significantly in Mozambique
because of climate change. So, the government should incorporate climate change
risks in its infrastructural planning and investments and establish a national
response plan to climate change.
One of the most important aspects for Rui Brito about
climate change in Mozambique
is the probability of the increasing intensity of cyclones that will affect the
center and the south of Mozambique.
This means that the power of destruction will also increase in an exponential
scale, what could devastate entire areas of the country.
Another point that concerns Rui is the continuing
temperature rise. This will have an awful consequence on agriculture because plants are already cultivated within its
temperature’s edge. If degrees fluctuate
a little plants will not be able to survive. In a place like Mozambique where population is 70%
rural, this couldlead to catastrophic
events.
This study’s value is vast and its immense predictions
for long term events might change government policies or even civil society’s
opinions about climate impacts in Mozambique in due time.
Once
societies and governments reach an understanding that climate change is about
their daily lives they can finally begin to intensify all the problems that
they already have like hunger, diseases, infrastructure etc and focus on being
part of the solution and not the problem.
Caroline d’Essen has graduated in Communication
Science in Brazil and was working for the last three years as a Journalism
Professor at the University Eduardo Modlane, in Mozambique.
