By Madalitso Kateta:
Standing on the debris of what used to be her home, Dorothy Nowa, a 50-year-old widowed mother of four from Mgabu in Chikwawa district southern Malawi vividly recalls incidents of February 24,2022.
It had started like any normal day-not until she observed how the weather had suddenly changed. Despite her low literacy levels, Nowa who is one of the close to a million people that were affected by what she later learnt was Cyclone Ana had to make a quick decision. She had to move to a higher area as in the wake of climate change the area has become vulnerable to floods.
“I knew that the non-stop down pour would lead into floods and I had to urgently move to higher ground with my children and some few valuables,” said Nowa.
The heavy downpour which was accompanied by strong winds ended into a tropical storm and floods washed away homes, crops, livestock and other valuables. The loss incurred during this climate change extreme events means that climate change is also negatively impacting the socio-economic development of the country.
“I am just happy that I am still alive, of course I lost property that I worked for several years but this can’t compare with losing life in those floods,” she said.
Since 2006, every rainy season in Malawi has been characterized by ugly scenes of climate change induced extreme events such as floods, hail storms and agricultural pests which threaten the country’s agriculture sector- the agriculture sector employs 80 percent of the country’s population.
According to available data, Malawi has from 2000 to 2022, experienced more climate change extreme events as compared to the period between 1970 to 2000. In the 2015 to 2016 and 2016 to 2017 rainfall seasons alone, Malawi declared two consecutive state-of-disasters both related to climate change with the loss that arose after the 2015 floods alone estimated at US$ 494 million.
Incidentally as climate change continues to take its toll, the number of food insecure people has been steadily rising from 350,000 in the period between 2007 and 2011 to 1,700,000 in the period 2012 to 2014. And this year (2022) and estimated 5.4 million people mostly from southern Malawi are facing acute or moderate food insecurity.
Silver Dackson, a resident of Dembo village in Chikwawa who was affected by cyclone Ana, told this writer his family had lost all their property to the floods as they had no time to rescue some of the property since the floods happened within a short time.
“Things were happening very fast. Even though the rains were falling fairly we just saw a lot of water surrounding our house,” said Dackson. “Then all of a sudden the fence collapsed and later when we were on safe ground the whole house. We have literally lost everything”.
The climate crisis in Malawi is driven by unsustainable management of the environment and charcoal production has been identified as the major culprit behind the rapidly dwindling Malawi forests. Moses Chabuka, executive director for Neno Active Youth in Development (NAYODE) however believes the situation could be stabilized if the rich nations kept commitments made in the Paris Agreement.
“Careless cutting down of trees for charcoal production is driving environmental degradation and as the forests become bare we are experiencing climate change induced extreme events like floods and droughts,” said Chabuka adding, “However the situation could be reversed if the rich nations kept their Paris climate commitments and were remittang the carbon funds as per their commitment”.
He said as the global community meets at the Convention Of Parties (COP) 27 in Egypt, African negotiators should ensure that they demand the industrialised nations to honor their Paris commitments.
“Industrialised nations should respect their Paris commitments, many people in Africa are dependent on biomass for their energy needs and this situation could be changed only if the industrialised nations kept their commitments by remitting the carbon funds which could be used for alternative energy projects,” said Chabuka.
While the humanitarian face of climate change is very clear in Malawi, experts say there is a need for the government to set deliberate policies to economically empower the people that are suffering from the effects of the climate crisis.
“While there has been a rise in programs addressing effects of climate change, however, the scale is still small as the programs largely depend on external funding through projects, this puts a dilemma to the long term financing that climate change resilience requires,” Says William Chadza Executive Director of Mwapata Institute.
Chadza says while Malawi has achieved to put in place policy measures to address effects of global warming over dependence on external funding means that the county’s poor who usually suffer from extreme climate events will continue to be exposed at the risk of climate shocks such as floods and droughts.
“We need to gradually reduce reliance on development partners and consolidate the national budgetary arrangements for disaster management as currently operational resources fall under the unseen vote that makes it difficult to respond to extreme climate change events,” said Chadza.
Meanwhile as global leaders are expected to meet for the COP27 in Egypt, it’s the wish of climate vulnerable people like Nowa that they will strike a climate deal that will be inclusive.
