JOHANNESBURG: Africa's fabled eastern glaciers will vanish in two decades, 118 million poor people face immanent drought, floods or extreme heat, and climate change could also shave 3 per cent off continental GDP by mid-century, the UN climate agency warned on Tuesday .
According to one data set, 2020 was Africa's third warmest year on record, 0.86 degrees Celsius above the average temperature in the three decades leading to 2010. It has mostly warmed slower than high-latitude temperate zones, but the impact is still devastating. It forecast that on current rates all three of Africa's tropical ice fields - Tanzania's Kilimanjaro, Kenya's Mount Kenya, and Uganda's Rwenzoris - would be gone by the 2040s.
Africa, which accounts for less than 4per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, has long been expected to be severely impacted by climate change. Its croplands are already drought-prone, many of its major cities hug the coast, and widespread poverty makes it harder for people to adapt.
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