As a severe drought, worsened by El Niño, takes hold of southern Africa, an estimated 20 million people face acute hunger due to failing crops and climbing food prices.
The drought has triggered national emergencies in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, as agricultural communities grapple with the effects.
Locals are resorting to desperate measures, such as gathering wild tubers in dangerous waters, to fend off starvation.
Surging corn prices are exacerbating the crisis, with other factors like the Ukrainian conflict and local economic conditions playing a role.
Key quote:
“It’s really important that resilience to droughts, especially in these parts of the continent, should really be improved.”
— Joyce Kimutai, study author and researcher at the Grantham Institute
Why this matters:
The frequency and intensity of El Niño events may be influenced by climate change, potentially leading to more severe and prolonged impacts. As such, during El Niño years, Southern Africa could face heightened challenges in food production and access, thereby worsening the existing hunger crisis in the region.
Climate change—and the subsequent increase in droughts, flooding, and extreme heat—has held back agricultural gains and impeded global food security efforts.
Ordinarily, all this hot water would portend a season of intense tropical storms in the Atlantic, but there’s another unusual force tamping down on severe weather: An already-strong El Niño this year is roiling the Pacific Ocean.
Eastern Australia looks set for a drier winter and spring as a US federal agency predicts an “extremely high likelihood” of an El Niño developing later in the year.
The arrival of El Niño could mean significant impacts worldwide, including a push toward levels of global warming that climate scientists have warned could be devastating.
