The UN "disappears" yet another inconvenient climate claim, and once again, botches the cover up

[:)] Enjoy.
Traveling back in time here is the full text of the article from 9 Jan 2008 from the link: http://replay.web.archive.org/20080109120412/http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=192&ArticleID=2776&l=en

Global Warming: Africa Hit Hardest
Nairobi, 22 February 2001 – Rising levels of disease, famine and poverty are forecast for Africa by scientists studying the impacts of global warming.
A report, published today (MON) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says heavy, monsoon-like, rains and higher temperatures will favour the breeding of disease-carrying mosquitoes, allowing them to thrive at higher altitudes.
“Higher temperatures, heavier rainfall and changes in climate variability would encourage insect carriers of some infectious diseases to multiply and move further afield,” says the report by the IPCC’s Working
Group II.
The report cites how malaria cases in the highland area of Rwanda have increased by 337 per cent in recent years with 80 per cent of the climb linked with changes in temperature and rainfall which improved breeding conditions for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. A similar link has been reported in Zimbabwe.
The report notes that mosquitoes can also transmit many viruses, over 100 of which are known to infect humans. These include malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, and severe and sometimes fatal encephalitis and haemorrhagic fever.
Cholera, which is transmitted by water or food, could aggravate health problems in many parts of the world including Africa. The scientists say that during the 1997-1998 El Nino excessive flooding caused cholera epidemics in Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.
There is evidence that El Nino, a vast natural climatic phenomenon that can bring intense floods and droughts in many parts of the globe, is becoming more frequent as a result of global warming.
Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which along with the World Meteorological Organization launched the IPCC, said yesterday:” This latest assessment makes bleak reading for many people across the developing world and in particular for us in Africa”. UNEP is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.
“We must re-start the stalled climate change negotiations as a first step towards the deep cuts in emissions from factories, power stations, cars and homes, needed to curb damaging climate change. But we also need to help vulnerable people to adapt to the impacts and that action needs to be taken now,” he said.
Mr Toepfer added:” We must prepare across all sectors of society including governments, aid agencies, non governmental organizations and the United Nations family of which UNEP is part. We do not have too much time, but there may be enough to make a real difference to those at risk if we start today,” he said.
While heavy rains will become more frequent, there will also be rising levels of drought and the spread of deserts such as the Sahara, the scientists warn.
“In Africa’s large catchment basins of Niger, Lake Chad and Senegal, total available water has decreased by 40 to 60 per cent,” says the report.
The scientists predict that, in terms of droughts, southern Africa could be one of the hardest hit areas. “Lack of rain, warmer temperatures and increases in evaporation could reduce yields by a third or more in these areas,” it says.
Farmers in the developed world may get access to new varieties of crops which are more heat- and drought-tolerant. But the scientists warn that in the developing world many farmers have little or no access to new species and varieties. “They may struggle to cope when conditions are warmer and drier,” says the report.
In developing countries today, 790 million people are estimated to be undernourished. Undernourishment is a fundamental cause of stunted physical and intellectual development in children, of low productivity in adults, and of susceptibility to infectious disease.
The scientists are reasonably confident that climate change will increase the number of undernourished people in the developing world including Africa.
Food shortages as a result of climate change may add to the numbers of people leaving the land and migrating to urban areas which in turn could lead to more shanty towns around African cities.
“Those most at risk are the squatter and other informal urban settlements, where many people live close together under poor shelter, with little or no access to resources such as safe water and public health services,” says the IPCC study.
These people will also be at greater risk from natural or climate related disasters to such as cyclones as “there is little they can do to avoid disaster, or escape when it strikes”.
The scientists believe that there may be significant extinction of plants and animals in Africa during the new century as a result of global warming. This will increase poverty by impacting on rural livelihoods and
tourism.
“Coastal settlements in, for example, the Gulf of Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Egypt and along the East-Southern African coast would be adversely affected by sea-level rise through inundation (flooding) and coastal erosion,” says the report.
Some action to protect vulnerable people in Africa has begun, the report notes.
The IPCC’s First Assessment Report in 1990 highlighted the critical need for better early warning systems. Since then, seasonal forecasting for Africa has become vastly more detailed and accurate.
Satellites, for example, can now measure ground moisture, which could let local officials issue flooding warnings in advance to endangered communities, and prepare for health risks such as malaria
outbreaks when there is more water for mosquitoes to breed in.
Early famine warning systems have been set up throughout Africa, giving at least several months’ notice of drought and water shortage. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, maize growers now get warning of drought six months before harvest.
Drought warnings do not in themselves prevent famines, however. Measures that would improve Africa’s food security include transfer of overseas expertise in producing food under excessively hot, dry
conditions.
Transfer of new technologies could reduce the need to cut down trees for use as firewood and charcoal – thus also stopping the onwards march of desertification. Solar, wind and biogas energy are being
used in small-scale projects continent-wide, with promising results. In rural areas of Zimbabwe, for example, biogas units using cattle dung are producing electricity for nearby communities.
UNEP, with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), are developing schemes like these in Africa.
Desertification has sparked a range of agricultural and forestry management changes which will also help soften the impacts of climate change. In Niger, farmers with access to credit are setting up low-cost systems which combat wind erosion, including windbreaks, mulching, ridging and rock bunds.
Recently the Sereer in Senegal and the Mossi in Burkino Fasso improved their regional climates by using traditional pruning and fertilizing techniques to double tree densities in certain semi-arid
areas. The trees hold the soils together, reversing desertification. More trees also means more rainfall: the foliage of the extra trees produces more evaporation, which then can fall again as rain.
Initiatives carried out at the community level seem to work best, says the IPPCC report Community-scale projects in Madagascar, Niger and Zimbabwe, for example, show that if an affected community is given the time to discuss options for making their land more productive, they work out efficient solutions and apply them long-term.
Regional-scale cooperation is also important. Many of Africa’s river basins are shared by more than one country, and to avoid potential conflicts, regional agreements on cooperative management of
shared water resources have already been negotiated.
The Zambesi, for example, is to be diverted towards the south, sending surplus water into regions where water is scarce. Other cooperative flood planning envisages using one country’s lakes to store some of a river’s floodwaters, reducing the flood peak and destruction in countries downstream.
For more information, please contact: Nick Nuttall, Media Officer, UNEP, P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya: Tel: 254 2 623381, mobile, 254 (0)733 632755, e-mail: nick.nuttall@unep.org or Tore Brevik, UNEP Spokesman/Director, Communications and Public Information, in Nairobi on Tel: 254 2 623292, fax: 254 2 623927, e-mail: tore.brevik@unep.org
See also http://www.grida.no for a series of useful and downloadable graphs, http://www.unfccc.int for official documents about the climate talks, and http://www.wmo.ch and ww.unep.ch/conventions/info/infoindex.htm
for additional background information.
UNEP News Release 01/27

There’s a couple of issues with this:
The claim “Africa will be hardest hit by global warming” – this is a 100% fluff claim.
First of all, Africa is the poorest continent. It is safe to say that they will be the hardest hit by almost anything. The poor always suffer more when things go wrong. They’ll probably be hit hardest by a Justin Bieber gig – though that may just be because of having some semblence of taste.
Secondly “will be”. This is the future. Not just any old future, but the future which keeps going into the future. So if in 20 years a given road will be underwater, and 20 years pass and it isn’t, then it was a defective 20 years, and it’s yet to happen. After all, don’t people understand the future tense?
Also Africa is a convenient dumping ground for disaster, because not too many people live there who can pop up on the internet and say “That didn’t happen!” This is similar to the far northern wastes of Canada which apparently were scorching hot while the rest of the world froze. Again, a convenient dumping ground of statistics that no one is going to contradict.
So given all of the above, why did the UN shoot this paper given that it was just full of fluff? I can see why they shot the “20 million refugees” paper, but not why they shot this one.
I can only surmise, there’s something coming, that this paper would have embarrassed. Is there anything due?

I think there may be a different reason for removing this page than that poll: Maybe they removed the page 2 days ago – on World Malaria Day. It must be quite embarrassing that despite all the bad climate change that was supposed to happen in the 10 years since this article was written, substantial progress has been made in the fight against malaria in Africa.
I quote http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/ProgressImpactSeries/report2.html :
“An estimated 908 000 malaria deaths have been averted through ITN coverage between 2000–2010, with three quarters of the deaths averted since 2006”

I was born, and spent my first 46 years, in sub-Saharan Africa. Everything Anthony says is correct. The rest of you (when you disagree) don’t know what you’re talking about. Idiots!
Another bogus climate claim rubbished by reality.

Anthony – thanks again for your tireless work in turning over rocks that certain parties seemingly don’t want turned over. Behaviour like this (of the UN) is exactly why ordinary people are switching their views. We all hate being mushroomed.

I’m surprised that there haven’t been more comments about the accuracy or inaccuracy of the contents: “The report cites how malaria cases in the highland area of Rwanda have increased by 337 per cent in recent years with 80 per cent of the climb linked with changes in temperature and rainfall which improved breeding conditions for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. A similar link has been reported in Zimbabwe.”
Does anybody have a copy of the full report? It is always interesting to see whether predictions of calamity withstand the test of time.

Typo:
Sahe[l] has been greening

Why did they ask Developed Asia twice, and get a different answer the 2nd time?

“Robin Guenier says:
April 27, 2011 at 10:49 am
REPLY: The one thing that nobody seems able to explain is why was that press release there on April 17th, then gone today, while older documents remain on the web page which contained a link to it. If anyone can explain that, especially in light of UNEP was caught removing another document with a bold claim last week (50 million climate refugees that never mateialized) I’m listening – Anthony”
Anthony, is it a coincidence that you mention April 17 above and you had the following on April 16? My guess is that these people are avid readers of WUWT and when they saw the article below, they got really scared and tried to keep ahead of your people who may want to search for failed predictions of any kind.
“New permanent feature: the “Climate FAIL Files” – help needed
Posted on April 16, 2011 by Anthony Watts
Many times, these climate failures get a mention, and then fade into obscurity. When we try to find them later, search engines aren’t as useful or cooperative as we’d like. I want to change that by providing a central repository for such failed claims. I’ll make it a special page, part of our menu bar, with an icon link on the sidebar, suitable for placement on other websites. The Climate FAIL files page exists here.”