Africa speaks up on Climate Change describes the problems Africans are already facing, but it doesn't stop there. The signatories pose concrete demands to political leaders of industrial nations, emerging economies and also African countries themselves. They all have to put a stop to further climate change and at the same time find ways to adapt to the existing consequences.
Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel peace prize laureate Wangari Maathai is the author of the appeal Africa speaks up on Climate Change and the patron of the campaign. Her hope is that Africa no longer keeps silent but speaks up in order to challenge climate change and its effects.
The film Hotspot Africa
The scientists in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) state without a doubt that no continent will be hit harder by climate change than Africa. Their prediction: rising temperatures and a rise in extreme weather anomalies. Farmer and environmentalist Mulualem Birhane and his neighbours found out long ago what that means for the every day lives of Africans. In Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, almost all farmers rely solely on weather conditions for their harvest. „We used to have a fixed rainy season, but for some years now, it's been unreliable - sometimes, the rainy season doesn't come, sometimes the rain is too heavy or too late," says Mulualem.