CLIMATE change may have a graver effect on Africa than any other continent, if the predictions of the most recent report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change hold true. It predicts a minumum increase in temperature of 2.5ºC by 2030, and dry areas will expand. Around 600,000 square kilometres of cultivable land may be ruined. Rising sea levels would threaten coastal infrastructure in Egypt, Senegal and the Gulf of Guinea, an important oil-producing region. Another study by the University of Pretoria estimates that $25 billion may be lost in crop failure because of rising temperatures.

AFP