Proceedings of the 4th World Conference on Climate Change and Global Warming
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Presentation of Climate Change
Ilyas Muhyadin Sh Mursal
ABSTRACT:
Somalia is among the most vulnerable countries to the effect of the climate change and its impact will be devastating to say the least. As the livelihood of more than 50% of the population depends of livestock animals, the impact of climate change will be in full display in the coming 20 years. Temperatures will rise by 20C with unpredictable successive droughts and floods. This also means a large portion of the country may become uninhabitable as a result of the rapid effects of climate change, which would have disastrous effects on human health and food security as shown in figure1. One positive thing for Somalia is the impact of sea level rise as most of the cities in country is at least 410m higher than the sea level. By the year 2100, you will be able to swim near K4. Aden Adde Airport and the sea port will both be fully submerged and so will be most of the Waberi, Hamar Weyne, Shingani and Bodhere districts. Ali Madi Hotel will be the part of the Leedo beach,
For many nations including many in the pacific islands of just 1m above the sea level, some will become partially or fully submerged. Scientists have predicted that unless we keep the temperature to 1.5 0C by 2050, we will reach a point of no return and as we are failing to reduce emissions it seems that most of living beings will be doomed to extinction. The year 2050 is fast approaching while the world is playing a blaming game. The West claims they have reduced emissions and are reaching their net-zero emission targets. They also claim that developing nations such as China and India are currently emitting more greenhouse gasses. That is true, but if you look population wise, Western nations emit 3 times more per capita than India. It’s also worth mentioning that the European nations have moved their high energy-consuming industries to Asian some countries, thus increasing global emissions in addition to their efforts of transporting goods back and forth to the West. As successful COPs failed to deliver the agreements required to limit emissions to 1.50C, the COP 27 in Sharma-el-Sheikh become yet another disappointing meeting even though rich nations vaguely agreed to pay rebate. The poor nations are negotiating with the rich bilaterally to help them mitigate or adopt to the climate change, while the developing nations keep refusing to cut carbon emissions as their countries need to further develop and put the blame on the west while emitting 90% of the greenhouse gases and still continue to pollute the atmosphere.
- What is the Somali Government doing to mitigate the climate change?
The answer is simple, ‘Absolutely Nothing’. The team from Somalia the Sharm-el-Sheikh summit were simply high-profile selected members who were ill prepared and uninterested of what was at stake as the relevant technocrats and experts in the issue of discussion were left behind in Somalia. In contrast, the Kenyan government hand-picked a highly qualified team of scientists, engineers, agronomists, environmental and energy experts and any other sector which may be affected by the climate change the day after COP26 in Glasgow.
Kenya came up with bankable projects and negotiated bilateral agreements with every nation, while Somalia on the other hand had nothing to negotiate with. But instead, Somalia has confined itself with the blindly signing the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) in COP26 as shown in table 1 bellow.
Almost 50% of the rich nations did not yet sign to phase out the use of coal or agreed to become net-zero by 2050. Unfortunately, the Somalia Ministry of energy signed to reduce the emissions as part of the country’s NDC. As you can see even in this small section shown here, Somalia signed more than any other nation.
Let us have a look at what we have signed for means:
- Stop deforestation.
98% of the energy we use in Somalia for lighting and cooking is in the form of firewood and charcoal. To stop deforestation, we need afforestation project in line with the number of trees we cut or clean cooking means as well as other renewable energy for lighting. I don’t think the government of Somalia can undertake and finance such large-scale projects costing more than half a billion USD. One other way of stopping deforestation would be to stop cooking and probably eat raw meat.
- Net-Zero carbon by 2050.
To have net-zero carbon means to have renewable energy for electricity generation and electrical cars and tricycle bikes in all major cities in Somalia. As the WB’s infamous Somali Electricity Access Project (SEAP) delivered solar PV systems of 10 W to 100 households, the task of electrifying the nation with renewable energy falls to the Government and ESPs.
- Phase out coal
I am personally an environmentalist and against the use of coal, but if some of the western nations didn’t stop the use of coal for electricity generation and China and India are actually increasing the use of coal, why will Somalia have to stop specially with high quality of coal resources which have never been used? There is enough coal in Adale district in the south and much more in Somaliland which can be used before the middle of the century to help the country build its economy.
- Cut methane emissions
The majority of methine emissions come from leakages of gas pipelines and chemical processing industries both of which we don’t have. Some methine emissions to the atmosphere come also from cow farming as well as rice paddies. Again, we don’t cultivate rice and the number of cows in Somalia have been shrinking in the last 25 years. What I don’t understand here, is why do we have to refuse to cut methane-which we don’t need, and accept to stop using charcoal- which we need?
What is more surprising is that Somalia have submitted their greenhouse gas contribution as you can see in the table 2 bellow.
keywords: Presentation of climate change