Sub-Saharan Africa must improve its current weather monitoring systems and closely link environmental research and government policy, UN officials said on the eve of the 12th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) beginning Monday in Nairobi.

"Part of the adaptation response ... must include significant improvements in Africa's climate and weather monitoring capabilities," UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner told a press conference.

"Then countries on the continent can better tailor their response in areas from agriculture to health care and international donors can better understand Africa's needs now, and in the future," Steiner said.

Africa, home to about 800 million people, accounts for more than a fifth of the world's total landmass and its people are the most severely affected by the impacts of global warming despite emitting the least amount of greenhouse gases that lead to climate change.

Extreme droughts, floods and rising sea levels are among the many threats facing Africa, which is home to 1,150 weather observation stations - eight times fewer than the World Meteorological Organization's recommended level.

Unless programmes are implemented to help African countries adapt to climate change, approximately 480 million people in Africa may be facing water security issues by 2025, according to a UN report released Sunday.

In addition, the report estimates that between 25 and 40 percent of species' habitats in Africa could be lost by 2085.

"Activating the adaptation agenda is critical," UNFCCC executive director Yvo de Boer said in a statement.

"It is time to move from establishing the principles to real action on the ground."

Among the programmes suggested by UN experts is the protection of small island states against rising sea levels, which can lead to coastal flooding.

Officials estimate that more than 70 million Africans could be displaced by flooding by 2080, up from one million in 1990.

The UN conference also coincides with the Second Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol - an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - being held at UN offices in Nairobi from November 6 - 17. Many environmental activists have lambasted the United States and Australia, two of the world's leading emitters of greenhouse gases which lead to the depletion of the ozone layer and global warming, for their refusal to sign onto the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's foremost experts on the subject, published a report in early 2001 suggesting that by 2100, the mean global temperature will have risen by between 1.4 and 5.8 C (2.5 and 10.4 F).

The IPCC was set up by the WMO and UNEP in 1988 to provide neutral, scientific assessments on climate change every six years. Their next report is due in early 2007.

A study released last week in Britain by former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern, said global warming could cost the world's economies up to 20 percent of their gross domestic product.

But combatting global warming now would cost about one percent of GDP, 20 times less than the potential cost of doing nothing.

earlier related report
Ethiopia caught in dangerous cycle of drought and floods
Addis Ababa (AFP) Nov 5 - Ethiopia, which was hit again by deadly floods this week, is caught in a devastating cycle of drought and heavy rains that threatens the survival of millions of people, experts say.

"Over the years, the Somali region of Ethiopia has suffered from cycles of droughts and floods," the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said.

According to the WFP, around 1.5 million farmers "require urgent humanitarian assistance as large numbers of livestock died, wells and boreholes dried up, malnutrition rates increased and disease became rampant."

The latest flooding has been caused by a sudden rise in the level of the river Wabe Shebelle, swollen by heavy rains, whose depth had doubled at the end of last week.

Flooding from the river had practically cut off the worst-affected towns of Kelafo and Musthail, 80 and 150 kilometres (50 and 90 miles) from Gode, the capital of the Somali region, humanitarian experts said.

The latest death toll issued by the Ethiopian authorities said 68 people had died in the recent floods and thousands had been made homeless.

The toll included five people taken by crocodiles lurking in the flood waters, said Muktar Mohamed, the flood emergency coordinator for the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Bureau (DPPA) in Gode.

Another six people had been injured in crocodile attacks, he added.

"The death toll has been climbing, because reports are coming in slowly from the affected places," he said.

Mohamed said that 17,000 hectares of land and 2,000 livestock had been lost in the flooding, which had affected nearly 280,000 people in 94 villages.

"We still don't have a precise figure for displaced people," he added.

The DPPA has begun distributing humanitarian aid of cereals, pulses and vegetable oil, while the WFP has made available 1,374 metric tons of grain from its stocks.

Southeast Ethiopia is still reeling from flash floods in August and September, which left 639 dead and affected over 350,000 people, again chiefly hitting the Somali region.

"One wonders how much an already vulnerable and fragile group of people are expected to bear," said the WFP's representative in Ethiopia, Mohamed Diab.

"At least WFP can ensure that many of those who may have already lost everything have something to eat," he told AFP.

But even this modest goal is hard to achieve by land because roads have been washed away and large tracts of territory are under water and full of crocodiles and snakes.

"As access to the flood-affected area is difficult, dropping food to survivors from aircraft is being considered," the WFP and the DPPA said.

Ethiopia's war-ravaged neighbour and northeast Kenya are also both affected by the flooding.

"Based on the latest flood watch reports, we fear the situation could get worse for the Juba region (in southern Somalia)," Matthew Olins, deputy head of Somalia's UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told AFP.

Olins said "small-scale damage" was already being recorded in the areas around the Somali capital Mogadishu.

The majority of observers are pessimistic about the situation in the Horn of Africa and see little hope of an end to the heavy floods and droughts that have plagued the region in deadly cycles for decades.

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