How is climate change affecting people’s lives in the Northern region?
Essay from Jeremiah Lucas Opira Memorial Contest 2023
Omara Emmanuel Francis
3rd runner up, Category 2
Climate refers to the average weather condition of a place recorded for a long period of time, normally 40-45 years. Climate change simply refers to the abrupt change brought about as per given circumstance. Climate change in Uganda is mainly affecting the North and, in most cases, affects people’s lives in a numerous way and adds to about 90% by the statistics done by Dr. Joseph Epitu in March 2022. Uganda is generally a country with stable rainfall patterns; however, the climate change has turned the seasons around with the country experiencing shorter or longer rainfall, especially in the Central, West and foremost Eastern parts of the country, leaving the out the Northern parts. Harsher droughts have prevailed in the country especially in the real geographic North, North–eastern and some parts of the West but typically it bases itself in the entire North in general. Climate change disrupts our society by disrupting the natural, economic and social systems we entirely depend on. This disruption affects food supplies thus affecting the industrial sectors in the supply chains and the financial markets, affecting consumers least and producers most. There are numerous and adequate ways the climate change has affected the lives of people in Northern Uganda and are shortlisted as follow:
It has damaged industrial supply, financial markets, human health and global development:
As in all facts, we know that the Northern parts of Uganda are the major producers supplying the general industrial sectors with the adequate raw materials. Climate change has greatly compromised the percentage of its production, for example, the sorghum and barely used to make beverages like beers and dried cassava which are used to produce some gins like Spelendour, Cheif Waragis through the distal fermentation of these raw materials. The climate change has reduced a major producing sector. As we plant our crops, strong sunshine arises and in bad turns make the crop stunt and later wilt which reduces the production.
Human basic needs such as food, water health and shelter are affected by climate changes in the North:
These changes may also threaten needs, affecting the needs of shelters that get blown off, for example the roofs (mabati) that are blown and grass thatched houses that are burned due to the heat. In addition to the water level and sanitation, the climate change has also affected the us with increasing changes in temperatures, risen sea levels, changes in general precipitation and more frequent or intense extreme events that leads to a lower water hygiene by the dust that tends to spark on the water surface, which causes some diarrheal diseases like typhoid and cholera among others.
Since Uganda is highly vulnerable to climate change and variability, its economy and the well-being of its people are tightly bound to climate change through the heat risks that are decreased instability, and at the same time decreased stability which is growth in temperature, drought and the unpredictable changes like the increasing temperatures of about 30°c to 31°c in the mid-morning and an average about 39°c to 40°c in the noon. It has also availed itself as a major risk not supporting agriculture, which is the very most important sector of the whole economy. Most of the productions is from small scale farmers who only practice subsistence farming of about 70% and commercial farming in the remaining percentages (30%) due to the average temperature of about 18°c to 30°c which affects the growth of some green vegetables, and some cover crops that control erosion.
Storms, heatwaves, rising sea levels and the more frequent and intense drought that is arising due to the increasing heatwaves from the radiations underground and the noise and air pollutions, in accordance with air polluting engines emitting off the unburnt fuel in form of the black carbon dioxide (CO), highly affects human life and it also in high cases leads and favours global warming in the hot and sunny, shiny areas of Kitgum, Lamwo, Gulu, Aleptong, Karamoja and many others. It can also lead to the high risk if death of animals due to the massive clinging in the water bodies and a typical example is the out dug wells in Lokales, Amudat district that has dried off which has caused people and animals to walk long distances in search of water to kill their thirst.
Poverty:
The problem of climate change has contributed to over 98.9% poverty rate in the Northern region and in this case, it affects people’s standards of living. An example is the people who majorly and entirely depend on hoes and seeds in addition to land and a resource. If no profit is realised from the hoes and seeds planted, there is no way to go because they do not practice any other form of business but primarily rely on agriculture. In addition to that, only the ‘white colour job’ men and women do benefit even though there is intense growth in the drought level in the North and the more the rich get education, the more the poor suffer, and the educated ones get their salaries at the end of the cycle, leaving the farmers without even a single profit, meaning that they cannot even afford to buy food to feed themselves with, buy scholastic materials like books and pens. As we all know, the percentage of people who are educated compared to the uneducated in the northern region of Uganda, it only ranges to about 20% uneducated and 80% educated. Where will the poor and uneducated ones get money if not from agriculture? The question is, how can this be achieved if there are high incidences of drought? This is totally out of profit, but all losses of the climate change are to continue and other circumstances like poverty increases.
The climatic change has also affected the livelihood of people in the Northern region of Uganda as well as North-Eastern Uganda through deaths. In many circumstances, the people in both North-Eastern and Northern Uganda die due to many arising factors as far as drought related with too much sunshine that strikes the coastal plates and thereby leads to loss of many lives in these areas and it also accumulates in the lives of man making him/her suffer spiritually, physically, mentally and in most cases it also leads to death of both man, animals and crops in the area that cover the Northern region.
Hunger:
In most cases, hunger relates to death and death relates to sunshine and agriculture. But hunger is also another way that the climate change has affected people’s lives. Hunger that arises from the crops that have wilted and died causes people to look malnourished because they lack food due to the crops being lost because of heavy sunshine and prolonged drought in some circumstances and also leads to a decrease and decline in health standards.
The climate change has also affected people’s dressing codes in a way that is when the sun rises without rain dropping into the earthly space, the dressing codes of the natives in the North have changed in a way that people withdraw from putting on their long and descent dresses that cover their knees and they look gentle and smart but now the climate change has also affects people’s lives in the North through the adaptation of the western culture which leads to the perishment of the native culture and thereby causes disrespect towards some people.
Health:
Climate change has also worsened the quality of air and water.
This is a result of the global warming and drought. This leads to a decline in health status which affects the lungs, livers, kidney and many other organs, this leads to deaths and causes havoc.
Climate change has also affected people’s lives in the Northern region by forcing them to leave their homes and thereby making people homeless. A typical example is in the people in Karamoja, Palabek and Omiya Nyima. Most of them have been forced to settle in camps and gazetted areas as the government look forward in re-establishing the homes of the people who has had to flee their homes.
Loss of land:
Though the government has gazetted areas for settlement, other people have lost lands in the hands of the government as an effect of climate change in the Northern region. An example is in the Karamoja land whose lands have once been lost because their area was affected by drought, famine and disasters, making them landless. Furthermore, the Northern region is experiencing direct changes manifested through frequent and severe dry spells, floods, high temperatures and increase incidence of pest and disease that has highly affected agriculture which is the most important sector of the economy. Furthermore, global warming, which is the gradual increase in the average temperature on earth, affects all sectors of development. It is also known to be documented historical warming. Yet the signs of climate change are apparent in other parts of Uganda too. Providing extreme weather patterns that are drying out what used to be wet areas. This increase would have strong impacts on agriculture, especially with respect to tree crops grown in the Northern region of Uganda such as beans, maize, soybeans and simsim that tends not to produce when too much sunshine is shone onto them, hence poverty, hunger and massive drought in the areas.
Furthermore, the climate change is affecting the lives of the people in the Northern Uganda. In 2016 and 2017, the disruption of rainfall patterns is thought to be attributable to at least 90.8% of the climate change. The study focused on risk and effects of climate change posed in Karamoja subregion in North-Eastern Uganda with the attention on the various adaptions of living and compared to other parts of Uganda like the Central and Western Uganda and it highly varied by percentage of 73% as in the 2019 statistics. And the effects of climate change include warming temperatures, changes in the precipitation, increases in frequency or intensity of some extreme weather events and rising sea levels that is negatively affecting impacts and threaten our health by affecting we food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the kind of weather we experience, hence the climate changes is disrupting the natural, economic and social system we depend on and this disruption will highly affect food supplies, industrial supply chains and the adaptation of the climate we live in.
Furthermore, climate change has affected the people’s lives in the Northern region through the increased risk of violence. The impacts of climate change caused many people to migrate which puts girl’s safety at risk. These risks are arising and is without a doubt one of the greatest challenge humanities is being faced, and it affects us all. Its indiscriminate nature leaves us wondering what this years’ unprecedented droughts have left even one-third of Northern Ugandans, peoples and animals from climate related droughts in the region.
From this climate change, droughts and wildfire to pests and pathogens, climate change is wreaking a massive havoc on the planted crops in the region of the North. However, more people will likely be exposed to the effects of climate change in the next centuries to come with potentially catastrophic and massive implications for human health and this is also one part of a series of climate risks.
In the Uganda National Climate and Meteorological Text act developed by Ministry of disasters and Preparedness, as of 2017, 9.9 million people lived in the Northern region of Uganda and as of 2019, over 6.1 million of them fled to the urban centres and the most industrial towns like Jinja and Mukono. Recent heatwaves from Karamoja reached record-breaking temperatures in June of last year after a long-time record of 24 years. New research finds that climate change is increasing the intensity of effects on the people in the Northern region. With the phrase “behind the scenes”, they meant that climate change has a great impact on the way of living, way of dressing and in other words new and modern methods of swinging in the agricultural sectors and that is the new modern farms involving organic farming and the greenhouse that is able to control too much heat but it comes with a due cost and it is expensive. But not all farmers can afford these greenhouses. Thar is also another way that climate change is affecting the lives of the people in the Northern region of Uganda.