Thousands are at risk as Senegal’s coast crumbles

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Europe

By CGTN's Jerry Owilli

Global climate change has already depicted observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner.

Effects that scientists had in the past predicted would occur are already being witnessed due to the global climate change. The world is already seeing shrinking shorelines, loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

In West Africa, the effects of climate change are clearly witnessed every year. Senegal is said to lose up to two meters of its coastline annually, thanks to rising sea levels.

In the country’s north, an entire city – Saint-Louis – is threatened.

Saint-Louis sits right up against the Atlantic Ocean – and has been felt the wrath of climate change to its fullest.

Some of the residents of the city are now abandoning their homes to seek settlements elsewhere in the country.

They fear the city will be washed away, leaving what they once called home just in their memories.

Others however are adamant they will stay, since they have nowhere else to call home.

“We know it is dangerous, worse still, we are losing our homes too. But we have nowhere to go or resources to relocate,” Mbye Diane Seck, a resident of Saint-Louis said.

The fight against climate change is however on globally, as nations unite to reach agreements on how best to achieve this.

Already, countries in the Paris climate agreement set a target of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius by curbing carbon emissions compared to their preindustrial levels.