By Daily Nation
The Sahel, the vast region that stretches along the Sahara’s southern rim from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, is on the front line of climate change.
Its extreme vulnerability to drought and shifting rainfall patterns is ratcheting up problems of poverty, population pressure and jihadist violence, experts say.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, global temperatures have risen 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a report issued in September by United in Science, gathering the world’s leading climate agencies.
But this average warming is around 50 percent greater in the Sahel. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the region suffered the worst droughts of anywhere on the planet.
More recently, it has seen dramatic changes in rainfall patterns, with torrential downpours that cause temporary spurts in vegetation in scorched areas.
