Somalia may be one of the world’s poorest countries and plagued by violence, but its top climate official says the problem is “solvable.”
The country has been torn apart by more than 30 years of overlapping conflicts – including an Islamist insurgency, a civil war and a series of regional and clan clashes. Yet Abdihakim Ainte, the Somali prime minister’s climate adviser, still sees his country as “a story of potential – of promise”.
What makes his optimism all the more surprising is the fact that climate change is compounding nearly every challenge his country faces.
One commentator described climate change as a “chaos multiplier,” as it exacerbates existing tensions and deepens conflict in fragile states such as this one.
Listen to Justin Rowlatt’s reporting from Somalia on The climate question
But Somalia, the easternmost country in continental Africa, cannot be blamed for our changing climate. The numbers are staggering. Since the 1950s, Somalia has emitted about as much carbon dioxide from fossil fuels as the U.S. economy produces in an average of three days..
The most obvious effects of climate change here are in agriculture. Somalia is still predominantly an agricultural economy, with about two-thirds of the population relying on agriculture and livestock for the majority of their income.
In 2022, the country experienced its worst drought in 40 years. Scientists estimate that the likelihood of such a drought is 100 times greater due to human-induced climate change.
The scale of the challenge facing Somalia became clear as the convoy of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Land Cruisers we were travelling in entered the dry scrub that covers much of the country. We were accompanied by three guards carrying AK47s – Somalia is the only country in the world where Red Cross workers travel with armed security as standard.
The camel herders and small-scale farmers we met are on the front lines of climate change here. For thousands of years, Somalis have made a living by moving their herds of camels and goats from pasture to pasture across this dry land.
But climate change is disrupting the rainfall patterns that make this way of life possible.
Sheikh Don Ismail told us that he lost all his camels during the drought because the pastures dried up and the fodder he grew on his small farm was not enough to keep them alive.
“The well dried up and there was no more pasture, so the animals started dying,” he said, shaking his head. “The life we have now is really bad — really bad.”
The drought has left farmers and herders fighting for access to water and pasture, with Sheikh Don saying he has sometimes been forced to defend his land at gunpoint.
“There is no respect if you don’t have a gun,” he said. “The shepherds who lead their animals to the farm stay away when they see my gun. They get scared.”
In a country divided into rival clan groups and already grappling with violence, such local conflicts can easily escalate into full-scale fighting, said Cyril Jaurena, who leads the ICRC operation in Somalia.
“Access to boreholes and pastures is becoming increasingly difficult, and so people in the area may fight over these resources, and sometimes people even shoot each other,” he warned.
And drought isn’t the only problem here. Last year, Somalia experienced terrible flooding, caused by rainfall scientists say was twice as intense due to human-caused global warming. The floodwaters washed away precious land, killing hundreds of people and displacing a million others.
The effects of the double whammy of climate change in Somalia are all too visible in the hunger clinic run by the Red Cross in a hospital in the southern coastal port city of Kismayo.
Every day, a steady stream of mothers bring their malnourished babies here, many having to cross territory controlled by al-Qaeda’s deadly ally, the Islamist militants al-Shabaab, to get here.
The UN estimates that more than 1.5 million children under the age of five in Somalia are severely malnourished.
About four million Somalis have been forced into large makeshift refugee camps – about a fifth of the total population.
Displaced people are making their homes from whatever they can lay their hands on – scraps of old cloth, plastic sheets and rusty corrugated iron – all draped over a web of dry sticks. Some people are even rolling tin cans into strips to form parts of their walls.
There is little international support, if any. In the refugee camp I visited, just outside the town of Garowe in northern Somalia, families have to pay for their food and water, as well as rent for the plots of land where they build their huts.
After more than three decades of war, Somalia has fallen significantly down the list of international priorities. Its problems have been overshadowed by what seem to be more pressing conflicts in places like Ukraine and Gaza. The UN calculates that Somalia needs at least $1.6 billion (around £1.2 billion) this year to meet its people’s basic humanitarian needs, but so far only $600 million has been pledged by donor governments.
The intertwining of climate and conflict has created a vast pool of potential recruits for the country’s many conflicts.
People in the camps are desperate for money. According to the people I spoke to, the easiest way to find work is as a paid fighter in one of the many rival armies.
A woman told me about her fear for her husband and four of her five sons after they joined a local militia.
“They are rural people with no skills, so the only job they could get was in the army,” said Halima Ibrahim Ali Mohamud as we sat on carpets laid on the dirt floor of her hut.
“They were desperate, and when you go long enough without food and your children are watching you, you’ll do anything.”
As we walked from hut to hut, mothers told us similar stories of husbands and sons who had left to become fighters, some of whom had been killed.
But many Somalis are taking action. The local power station in Garowe, for example, is investing in wind and solar energy.
The decision was not prompted by an international initiative, the company’s CEO said. Abdirazak Mohamed said he has not received any subsidies or aid from abroad. The National Energy Corporation of Somalia (NECSOM), where he works, is making the investments because renewable energy sources — energy from natural sources such as the sun and wind — are worth far more than the diesel generators the power plant used to rely on.
I met Somali entrepreneurs who started their own businesses, including a woman who arrived in the Garowe refugee camp with nothing but who built a successful business.
Amina Osman Mohamed explained how she borrowed food from a local stall, cooked it and used the small profit she made to do it again the next day.
The small but busy café she has opened generates the extra money she desperately needs to care for her ailing husband and 11 children, including her widowed daughter.
As I left Amina’s busy café, I began to understand why the Somali prime minister’s climate adviser is optimistic about his country’s future.
There is hope. But with climate change driving conflict here, this country will need continued international assistance to make peace and build resilience to our changing climate.
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