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Two cyclones have left dozens of people dead and hundreds of thousands more impacted.
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Analytical Review
For billions of people all over the world, climate change fears are a reality.
A series of tropical storms and cyclones have caused massive damage in Southern Africa, including Mozambique and Madagascar.
The displacement of thousands of people in Malawi and Mozambique was caused by the most recent Cyclone Gombe. An earlier Tropical Storm Ana hit Madagascar, along with Mozambique & Malawi.
Cyclone Gombe struck the coast of Mossuril District in Nampula Province, Mozambique, on March 11. The severe tropical storm was characterized by winds up to 190km/h (118 mph) and rainfall of 200/24h (7.874 in).
Gombe arrived just two months after Ana, which struck Mozambique in Jan. Tropical Depression Dumako, which also landed in February, was another factor. Just in Mozambique, 200,000 people suffered from flooding in the Nampula and Tete Provinces. There were also forecasts for heavy rains across Zambezia and Sofala, Manica, Nampula provinces before March ended. This could lead to flooding in the Licungo river basins and the southeast area Tete.
According to an article on the climate situation in southeast Africa along the Indian Ocean, Afrik 21 notes: “In neighboring Malawi, the disaster caused heavy rains leading to flooding in nine districts, including Machinga located 256 km (159 miles) from the capital Lilongwe. A total of seven people died in the south of the country, while authorities deployed rescue teams to flood-affected areas such as Liwonde, where the country’s fourth largest national park is located, and the Namandanje River, which serves as the border with Mozambique. Gombe did not reach Madagascar which is the country most at risk from natural disasters in East Africa. However, the big island was affected by other phenomena, such as cyclone Batisrai. This storm followed storm Ana and saw wind gusts up to 235 km (146 mi) per hour. After causing flooding across the country, destroying buildings and uprooting trees, the storm left 92 people dead and 50,000 displaced.”
(https://www.afrik21.africa/en/east-africa-the-heavy-toll-of-the-2021-22-cyclone-season-in-the-indian-ocean/)
These three states, Mozambique and Malawi, are all members of the Southern African Development Community. This regional organization includes 16 countries in the entire subcontinent and the Democratic Republic of Congo. SADC meets regularly to discuss issues of mutual concern, including greater cooperation among its members and economic integration.
The repeated tropical storms and other weather-related disasters have hampered the development of regional plans that were being discussed and ratified at SADC summits and working group meetings. The region of Southern Africa has a wealth of natural resources and is close to the Indian Ocean. This makes it a region with unlimited potential for growth.
Mozambique is home to a major energy plant that produces Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), which will be exported in Cabo Delgado. Independent of the recent cyclones there is an armed rebellion that has attacked towns and villages in the province. This has impeded LNG development and forced people to flee the area for safety. To assist the Mozambique Armed Forces in Anti-Insurgency Operations, the SADC and Rwandan military forces were deployed in Cabo Delgado.
The SADC countries are perhaps the most united politically of all the regional organizations on the continent. Even the African Union (AU), with 55 member states, has struggled to implement its proposals as quickly as the SADC.
The region is facing enormous challenges due to Cyclone Gombe, as well as other climate disasters. The public health crisis of the last two years, COVID-19, and the subsequent flooding, severely limit the planning capacity of governments and other parts of society. Cyclones are a contributing factor to the increasing national debt levels in African states.
The Failed Legacy of COP26
The United Nations sponsored another major climate conference last year, in Glasgow (Scotland). The COP26 conference was the scene for much political conflict over the issues and, most importantly, the final declaration.
The UN in their report on the meeting said: “The UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) brought together 120 world leaders and over 40,000 registered participants, including 22,274 party delegates, 14,124 observers and 3,886 media representatives. For two weeks, the world was riveted on all facets of climate change — the science, the solutions, the political will to act, and clear indications of action…. ‘The approved texts are a compromise,’ said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. ‘They reflect the interests, the conditions, the contradictions and the state of political will in the world today. They take important steps, but unfortunately the collective political will was not enough to overcome some deep contradictions.’” (https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/cop26)
These compromises are a result of the west, from Washington to Berlin, who often opposed the adoption concrete goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions around globe. The most responsible for the degradation of the environment status of the planet are the capitalist countries in the United States and Western Europe.
According to some studies, the U.S. Department of Defense is actually the largest polluter worldwide. Washington and Wall Street are responsible for the burning of harmful chemicals that damage the air, water, and land of countries around the world by their demand for armaments and ordnances as well as the presence of more then 7,000 military bases administered by the Pentagon.
A report published in 2016 on the link between the climate crisis and U.S. militarism says: “Yet, despite being the planet’s single greatest institutional consumer of fossil fuels, the Pentagon has been granted a unique exemption from reducing – or even reporting – its pollution. The U.S. won this prize during the 1998 Kyoto Protocol negotiations after the Pentagon insisted on a ‘national security provision’ that would place its operations beyond global scrutiny or control…. The Air Force accounts for about half of the Pentagon’s operational energy consumption, followed by the Navy (33 percent) and Army (15 percent). In 2012, oil accounted for nearly 80 percent of the Pentagon’s energy consumption, followed by electricity, natural gas and coal.” (https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/the_pentagons_hidden_impact_on_climate_change/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=tfd_dsa&gclid=Cj0KCQjw5-WRBhCKARIsAAId9FlLqV0cBonWQx2WvpYjQ7l1spNBGffnHfsLF0SqORs0N9kDwef0F5AaAoocEALw_wcB)
Climate Change and Imperialism
With these facts being placed in an article without any refutation by the Pentagon, illustrates clearly that the struggle against climate change must also encompass as an essential point of departure, the role of the Pentagon’s imperialist militarism. These issues are still relevant to the international community due to the war that was started by attempts to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Eastern European to Ukraine and efforts to rearm Germany as well as to reverse the neutrality of Finlande and Switzerland.
Solidarity activists based in western countries and anti-imperialists should never hesitate to mention the role of Pentagon military base and war efforts as major contributors of the worsening effects of climate change. East Africa has been a focal point for what is often labeled as “natural disasters” beyond the capacity of human being to prevent. However, scientists and analysts have consistently drawn a connection among mass production, light industrial, mining, food production and climate change.
The countries of Mozambique and Malawi contribute very little to the occurrence of climate catastrophes. These states should receive assistance in the form of relief efforts and construction of infrastructure to minimize the effects of cyclones.
People of goodwill in imperialist countries should support reconstruction of South African communities that have been damaged. It is their governments and corporations who have for decades implemented policies that have had disproportionately negative impacts on the peoples in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
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