Information Communication Technology (ICT) ‘s essential in Climate Adaptation and Mitigation.
By Kudzai Jakachira
Information and Communication latest technologies has the ability to accelerate entrepreneurship innovation and can enhance economic growth whilst adjusting business and governance development strategies in Africa.
The growing contribution of ICTs to Agriculture, Climate Change Adaptation, Education, Financial Services, Government Services and Health is reconnoitered.
This identifies the requisite of increasing Africa’s regional trade
and integration exercises and structuring a sophisticated ICT industry
to stimulate innovation, job creation and upsurge production to
exporting African countries, as well as adapting ICTs for climate
change response.
As climate change in Africa is unsettled, the continent begins to
witness human induced climate change affecting several countries in
the continent.
Escalations of temperatures which affect climate change has been
observed over the past decade with temperatures as low as 0.1 to 0.3°C
have been witnessed in South Africa over the past decade, for example,
with hints that Africa is warming quicker than the global average.
Rainfall patterns are becoming more variable across the continent,
reflecting in part the influence of traditional factors such as the El
Niño induced.
Warming in the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans may have led to a
weak-ending of monsoons, depriving the Sahel region of rainfall in
recent years.
The ICT sector can be an enabler of climate change adaptation in
African cities, but the sector itself has to adapt to climate change
in order to guarantee the continuity of essential ICT-related services
provision.
The relationship between ICTs and climate change adaptation is not
intuitive, but during the last few years, there have been a number of
different readings and reports published on this subject, especially
by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)and United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Thereby the adaption of ICTs in strategizing climate change adaption
in national planning and creating a long term national adaptation
strategy, enhancing capacity for national planning and implementation
of adaption must be adopted by the African continent.
Promoting coordination and synergy at the regional level and with
other multilateral environmental agencies.
Reporting, monitoring and reviewing climate control strategies to
assess progress, effectiveness and gaps the region is inattentive.
The complexity of urban contexts poses new challenges to the process
of developing and implementing climate change adaptation strategies.
However, it also offers new opportunities for the ICT sector to
contribute to climate change adaptation in cities.
Cities that are in the process of becoming smart and sustainable,
have an enormous opportunity to include ICT infrastructure and ICT
solutions as part of their climate change adaptation strategies to
respond more effectively to both current and future climate change challenges.
According to the World Bank initiative on “Cities and climate change
leadership”, over-arching adaptation policies must include an
integrated approach on strategies for disaster risk management (DRM),
poverty reduction and city resilience.
Along with communication technologies and infrastructure, the
development of ICT standards are also required for effective inclusion
of ICTs in city adaptation programs; and helping to strengthen cities
‘response to climate change adaptation worldwide.
Finally, it is important to highlight the potential role that ICTs
have to promote informed decision making in the adaptation processes.
In East Africa temperatures have risen by an average of 1.3°C since
1960. Rain patterns have altered and droughts and floods are be-coming
more frequent.
These observed changes in climate parameters have not occurred
uniformly across Africa
Since 1912, Mt Kilimanjaro’s ice fields have decreased in total area
by about 80 percent.
In North Africa significant warming has occurred during the summer
while winters are becoming drier.
Sahelian Sudan experienced a 25 per cent decrease in rainfall during
the last quarter of 20th century.
In Southern Africa decadal warming of 0.1 to 0.3°C occurred
between1961 and 2000, while the duration of the dry season lengthened
between 1961 and 2005.
West Africa saw substantial reductions in rainfall during the latter
half of the 20th century, including prolonged droughts in the 1970s
and 1980s, and greater rainfall variability
The current trends of rising temperatures and altered rainfall
patterns are set to continue during the remainder of this century.
At a continental level, mean annual temperatures are projected to
rise by between 3.2°C and 3.6°C by the period 2080 to 2099.
Precipitation patterns will also continue to change very likely
de-creasing along the Mediterranean coast, Northern Sahara and west
coast to 15°N, while increasing in tropical and east-ern Africa.
An increase in the number of extreme climate events experienced
within the continent is likely to accompany these changes in climatic
averages.
Rising sea levels are also projected to affect Africa’s coastline,
particularly the eastern coastline, as well as island states.
African countries are esp Africa’s climate is likely to be more
severely affected by climate change than other regions, as recent data
suggest that it is warming faster than the global average especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change for three interrelated, mutually reinforcing reasons.
