Third of Africa coastline at risk from climate change: UN

Yahoo News 8 Nov 07;

Around a third of Africa's existing coastline could be swallowed up by rising water levels brought on by global warming, the United Nations' top environment official said on Thursday.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN's Environmental Programme, told reporters at a press conference that the impact of climate change was already clearly in evidence and would become more serious in the coming years.

"By some projections, global warming could affect up to one third of Africa's coastal infrastructure by the end of this century," Steiner said at a press conference in Johannesburg.

"We know that we are on the course of having sea-levels rising from 20 (7.8 inches) to 60 centimetres (23.6 inches) in this century," he said adding that "port facilities, refineries will be affected."

The continent is already experiencing "major coastal erosion", calcification of shellfish under the increasing heat and dramatic shifts in currents as new climactic phenomena appear.

"Africa is in the midst of an accelerating process of depleting its natural capital, and that natural capital sustains many parts of Africa's economies, whether it is in agriculture, in fisheries, in tourism," said Steiner.

The worst affected by this process are rural communities which are poor and vulnerable and tend to depend more on these natural resources.

According to Steiner, Africa has long considered its natural resources to be inexhaustible, pushing back environmental questions while devoting itself to issues seen as more immediate.

"Politics is just beginning to catch up. African nations are realising that they are losing economic development opportunities by allowing their coast and marine resource-base to continue to be degraded."

Steiner said regional collaboration was necessary to deal with environmental threats.

"The environment, especially the marine and coastal environment, will need a pan-African response."

Steiner praised two conventions, signed in Abidjan and Nairobi, for the co-operation in protecting and developing the maritime and coastal environment, and called for them to be reinforced.

He was speaking at the end of a conference attended by 200 delegates from countries who are signatories to the conventions.