INTERVIEW: How to address climate change in African countries – Prof. Tanko

__Dr. Adamu Idris Tanko is a Professor of Geography with specialization in Land Resources (Development) and Vice Chancellor, Baba Ahmed University Kano. In a recent interview with Voice of America (VoA) Hausa Service monitored by Agroclimatenews he explains causes of climate change and what can be done to lessen the situation in African countries. Excerpt._

What is climate change?

The issue of climate is something well known nowadays because almost everyone is feeling the change. We know hot weather doesn’t usually exceed a number of months but the period has exceeded what it used to be.

The changes we see in our environment, for example long or short periods of dry season, change in hot weather or harmattan period, frequent or shortage of rainfall that are the issues usually around climate change discussion.

What brings about climate change?

There are natural and artificial causes of climate change. The artificial causes of climate change are usually as a result of human activities. Activities such as bush burning produce carbon and the carbon makes climate conditions to be hot further. Naturally everybody needs carbon dioxide and every human body produces carbon dioxide through the respiratory process.

We produce carbon in most of our businesses, industries, meeting households’ energy needs and by extension even agricultural activities also produce carbon and once it is being produced, it will definitely bring about climate change. In sum, our activities in our environment have a direct relationship with our weather conditions. For example if the rainy season period is usually 4-5 months and it reduces to 3 months then everything, from yields in farms and even sources of water people drink, would automatically go down because they have direct relationship with abundant rainfall in a year.

What can be done to alleviate the situation?

We have to address or reduce bush burning, we have to stop indiscriminate waste disposal in our streets and waterways which are common features in African countries.