Mozambique is a small country in southeastern Africa, consisting of only 28.83 million people. The official language is Portuguese due to colonialism in the early 1500s, and Swahili is spoken in very small regions around the country.

EMISSIONS

Mozambique’s average carbon emissions per capita are 0.17 metric tons.

CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS

Due to lack of infrastructure, city planning and geographic location, combined with sea level rise, frequent flooding and projected changes in extreme weather events, Mozambique’s coastal cities are among the most vulnerable in Africa to climate change. Sea level rise is also a threat to Mozambique. By the 2040’s, Mozambique’s coast could lose up to 4,850 km² of land and almost 1 million people could be forced to migrate inland.

For many years, Mozambique was in the midst of a drought. But then heavy and severe rains came in 2017, with intense, detrimental flooding in the southern part of the country. Lightning, thunder and hail pounded southern Mozambique just after the farmers had planted the rainy season crops. Later in early spring, the fields experienced extreme flooding, ruining all of the crops.The farmers had set up an irrigation system to prevent this, but there was so much rain that the irrigation system failed. Food security was not yet in the crisis stage, but it hurt the economy. Climate change was hitting this country hard.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

To help the farmers, you can donate to ActionAid, an international, non-governmental organization that helps people fight for the rights that they are denied. The Africa page says that the key themes in their work are HIV & AIDS prevention, care and treatment, peace building, famine relief and food rights, and education. Africa is the home of ActionAid, where they started helping local communities over 40 years ago.  Click this link if you would like to donate to the East Africa food crisis. International help is needed now more than ever.