The climate emergency is causing major alarm across nations all over the world, and it is the poorest of countries that usually bear the brunt. In Somalia for example, most of the country is experiencing drought, which does not only threaten lives and livelihoods, but it could lead to the deaths of more than two million people by the end of the summer season.
Climate change has caused havoc in the usual rain patterns in Somalia. They used to get a lot of rain particularly during the months of April to June, also considered the main rainy season because that's the time they truly get a huge amount of rain which fuels several businesses. Then there is the second rainy season towards the end of the year during October to December. The periods in between are usually the dry season. They receive a little less rain.
The advent of global warming has put more than ⅔ of the country in jeopardy. Most of these people who are suffering have lived all their lives depending on the rain for their survival and their livelihood. Last year, a lot of people have suffered when the dry season didn't seem to have moved on. Again, this year, the country has been suffering the dry spell making it seemingly impossible to grow crops and worse to even survive the heat with little to no water.
This has escalated to the decline of the production of livestock and widespread crop failure. These have brought about communities in the most affected areas into a stagnant decline of food security and the rise of unwanted deaths. In recent years, the frequency and duration of these dry spells have only gotten worse, which in turn has pushed the capacity of people to resist such shocks. Every drought they experience depletes the resources that they have: more of their animals die and the crops they planted fail to flourish. All these lead to even worse problems until they are stripped off with everything they have.
At this point, their last resort is to flee that's why most of them end up being displaced in communities they could not thrive. The extreme weather conditions in Somalia have indeed changed the lives of people in their communities. What's worse is that it has led to many deaths that could have been saved. Agencies that provide aid need more funding to provide not only immediate assistance but also to help battle the effects of global warming in the overall climate in Somalia.
The sad thing about what is happening to Somalia and every other poor country in the world is that the climate emergencies are increasing but the efforts to put a stop to them have become less and less. Perhaps such is a result of the fact that most of these air countries are not experiencing first hand the effects of climate change. It is crucial that in this unstable world, Somalia is not another country that needs help but doesn't get it.
