What does global warming mean for Botswana and Namibia?
Article co-authored with Professor Mark New (university of Cape Town) for the Thompson Reuters Foundation. Published 10 October, 2018.
The release this week of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special report on global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels marks a critical point in climate negotiations.
Billed in the media as “life changing”, the report illustrates how crossing the ever-nearer threshold of 1.5C warming will affect the planet, and how difficult it will be to avoid overshooting this target.
The report takes a worldwide look at the growing impacts of climate change. But for hot, dry, water-stressed countries like Botswana and Namibia it’s important to understand how surpassing the 1.5C global limit will play out at the local level.
In these climate change “hotspots” - prone to droughts and floods -- local warming and drying will be greater than the global average. Even a 1.5C increase in global temperature will have severe local impacts, ushering in intensified and longer droughts and many more heatwaves.
Ironically, when rain does fall, it is expected to be much heavier, increasing the risk of heavy flooding within an overall drying climate.
The Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, ideally 1.5C, by the turn of the century will be extremely challenging. To date, mitigation pledges by nations fall far short of what is needed, with global temperatures on track for warming of 3.2C by 2100.
If global emissions continue to increase, the 1.5C threshold could be breached as early as the next decade, and the 2C mark the decade after. This means there is an urgent need for countries like Botswana and Namibia to prepare and adapt.
