Africa Climate Site

http://www.africaclimate.org

Who are minorities?

They are non-dominant ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, who may not necessarily be numerical minorities.

Most Forest-dwelling communities or pastrolists are minorities who are mostly indigenous people and are not effectively included in the Climate Change discussions.  "Indigenous peoples have for centuries adapted to changing environments and would be able to contribute substantially to adaptation strategies the UN is trying to include in a new climate change treaty."

The impact of climate change hits indigenous and minority communities the hardest because they live in ecologically diverse areas and their livelihoods are dependent on the environment.

Inuits in the arctic are seeing people fall through melting ice, long droughts in east Africa are resulting in food shortages for pastoralists and Khmer Krom rice farmers in the Mekong delta in south Vietnam are seeing their crop yields fall.

Minorities are often amongst the poorest and most marginalised communities and are most likely to face discrimination when climate-related disasters occur, as is the experience of lower-caste Dalits in India.

"There has been a lot of attention paid to the damage climate change is doing to the environment and the loss of certain plant or animal species, but we aren't sufficiently recognizing the impact on people. There are entire communities that could be lost. Cultures, traditions and languages could be wiped off the earth".

Africa Climate Site

Climate
Most of Africa has a warm or hot climate, but the humidity and amount of rainfall vary dramatically from area to area.

Africa has the largest tropical area of any continent. The equator runs through the middle of Africa, and about 90 per cent of the continent lies within the tropics. In countries south of the equator, the seasons are opposite those of countries that lie north of the equator. But temperatures are high the year around almost everywhere in Africa. The variations between summer and winter temperatures are slight. In fact, the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures in most parts of the continent is greater than the difference in the average temperatures between the coldest and warmest months. For this reason, some people say that nighttime is the "winter" of the tropics.

Africa's highest temperatures occur in the Sahara and in parts of Somalia. The highest temperature ever recorded in the world was 136 degrees F. (58 degrees C) in the shade at Al Aziziyah, Libya, on Sept. 13, 1922. At I-n-Salah, Algeria, and along the north coast of Somalia, July temperatures soar to 115 degrees F. (46 degrees C) or higher almost every day. Nighttime temperatures, however, may drop sharply. The Sahara also has the greatest seasonal range of temperatures in Africa. Winter temperatures in the Sahara average from 50 degrees to 60 degrees F. (10 degrees to 16 degrees C). Near the equator, temperatures may average 75 degrees F. (24 degrees C) or more the year around. But temperatures of more than 100 degrees F. (38 degrees C) are rare.

The coolest regions in Africa are the northwest, the highland areas of the east, and parts of the south. In Johannesburg, South Africa, for example, the average temperature in January, the warmest month, is 68 degrees F. (20 degrees C). Frost and snowfall are common in the mountains of Africa.