Climate change has made extreme weather events like drought, higher temperatures, and heavy rainfall become common and severe in Kenya, the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) said on Thursday.
In a report on climate change impacts in Kenya released in Nairobi, the country’s capital, the KMD said that climate change increased the intensity of heavy rainfall in the country and the Horn of Africa in 2023, causing more than 300 deaths and displacing over a million people.
The average annual temperature in the region is projected to rise 0.6 degrees Celsius above the 1994-2005 average, the KMD said.
“In Kenya, climate change has made events like the extreme drought that the country has been experiencing since 2020 stronger and about 100 times more likely,” it said in the report.
The KMD said that in Kenya as in other countries in East Africa, glaciers are declining as temperatures rise. On Mount Kenya, glaciers are currently estimated to cover just 4.2 percent of their total area and are projected to disappear by 2030 if temperatures continue to surge.
The agency called for improvement of early warning systems, development of a model of climate change mitigation that interacts with adaptation and resilience building and livelihood diversification as a risk management strategy intended to broaden how households provide for themselves as climate change effects unfold.
“Kenya needs immediate action – including international climate finance – to support adaptation and low-carbon development and secure a fair, liveable future for its people,” the KMD said.
