Africa

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. 2023 will be remembered as the hottest year ever, the year of extreme weather events, heat waves, droughts, devastating fires, floods, the year of the criminalization of climate activists and one of the United Nations Climate Change most controversial ever he brought at the beginning of the end of the era of fossil fuels, without however putting their gradual elimination on paper. The agreement reached at COP28 and our future In early 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) spoke peak oil, gas and coal consumption will be exceeded for the first time before 2030.“It's not a question of 'if', but 'how soon' - and the sooner it happens, the better for all of us,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA.According to a scenario proposed by the International Energy Agency, based on the policies declared by the governments of various states around the wo...

The 'Mattei Plan' revealed:5.5 billion euros on the table and the feeling of a missed opportunity Update January 31, 2024: During the Italy-Africa summit, the first international appointment of the Italian presidency of the G7, the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, he revealed the so-called Mattei Plan, or at least he talked about figures and mentioned possible initiatives in Africa.In front of representatives of 46 countries (including heads of state and government) and 25 multilateral bodies, gathered in the Senate, Meloni he announced the forecast of "5.5 billion euros between credits, gift operations and guarantees:approximately 3 billion from the Italian climate fund and 2.5 billion and a half from the development cooperation fund".There are already pilot projects, from Morocco to Kenya, from Algeria to Mozambique, from Egypt to Ethiopia with the involvement of 12 investee companies (from Eni to Leonardo) in five areas of intervention:vocational education and training, health, water...

The dust transported from Africa to southern Italy moved rapidly northwards, also affecting France and Switzerland

The recommendations of the Capitol after the permitted limit of Pm10 in the air was exceeded for the second day in a row

The historic Paris climate agreement started a mantra from developing countries: “1.5 to stay alive.” It refers to the international aim to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.8 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial times. But the world will likely pass that threshold within a decade, and global warming is showing little sign of slowing. The world is already facing natural disasters of epic proportions as temperatures rise. Heat records are routinely broken. Wildfire seasons are more extreme. Hurricane strength is increasing. Sea level rise is slowly submerging small island nations and coastal areas. The only known method able to quickly arrest this temperature rise is climate engineering. (It’s sometimes called geoengineering, sunlight reduction methods or solar climate intervention.) This is a set of proposed actions to deliberately alter the climate. These actions include mimicking the cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions by putting la...

Esnart Chongani boils five small pumpkins over firewood outside her home in Makoka, a village in Zambia’s Chongwe District, not far from the capital, Lusaka. She tests to make sure they’re tender, drains the water, which she will save for later, and then carefully divides them into 12 portions as her family sits down for lunch. It’s a healthy dish, but there’s scarcely enough to go around, and this is the only meal any of them will eat today. Chongani, 76, isn’t used to rationing. She’s the proud owner of a seven-acre farm that she has worked on for decades. Ordinarily, her family harvests more than two tons of maize in April. But this year, southern Africa was hit by its worst mid-season dry spell in over a century, and for the first time in her life, they have harvested nothing. “I cannot remember anything like this,” says Chongani. “People are so hungry they are stealing food. The generosity o...

Eight thousand kilometers long and fifteen kilometers wide.These are the impressive measures of the Great Green Wall, a tree belt that the African Union is building in order to counter the advance of the desert.The ambitious project aims to cross the African continent horizontally.From Senegal to Djibouti, the tree-lined line will pass through 11 nations with the noble aim of combat environmental degradation and poverty in the region.The costs have been estimated at approximately 33 billion dollars, of which 14 have already been invested.More than ten years after the official launch of the project, approximately 20% of the route has been completed.According to several sources, however, the initiative is already changing things for the better.Because, to be honest, the Great Green Wall is not just a work aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change.More than a line, it is in fact a “restoration mosaic” which protects agriculture, offers jobs, promotes social cohesion an...