Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.[Regnum] Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has declared a national disaster in the country due to the devastating drought that has gripped much of southern Africa. This was reported on the page of the head of state on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
“We are mobilizing resources to assist affected communities and mitigate the impact of this natural disaster,” the head of state wrote.
Declaring a national emergency at State House in Harare on April 3, the president called on the global community to provide $2 billion (£1.6 billion) in humanitarian aid to mitigate the effects of drought caused by the El Niño climate phenomenon.
“Preliminary estimates indicate that Zimbabwe requires more than $2 billion for the various measures we are putting in place in our national response,” Mnangagwa said.
He also added that below-normal rainfall fell on more than 80% of the country, which is home to more than 15 million people. This caused a difficult food situation.
The President called the main priority of the Zimbabwean government to provide food for the country's citizens.
“No Zimbabwean should suffer or die from hunger,” he said.
Mnangagwa said authorities expect more than 2.7 million people will need food assistance, Sky News reported.
As Regnum reported, experts surveyed by Bloomberg said that 2024 could become the hottest year on record and break the 2023 record. Experts explained that the increase in temperature this year will be influenced by the natural phenomenon El Niño, associated with fluctuations in the temperature of the surface layer of water in the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean. According to preliminary estimates, this year the average temperature on the planet will increase by 1.3–1.6 degrees.
The effect of El Niño was noticed in the summer of 2023. The US National Centers for Environmental Prediction reported in July that the average temperature on the planet has broken records known throughout the history of weather observations.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a video message to the participants of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in Dubai in November 2023, said that humanity is experiencing climate collapse.
He called 2023 the hottest year in human history. Data to the end of October showed temperatures in 2023 were up about 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
According to the UN World Meteorological Organization, summer 2023 was the hottest on record.
The scientific director of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia, Roman Vilfand, said on February 21 that the natural phenomenon El Niño, which could provoke an abnormally hot summer in 2024, will begin to cease its effect in April. According to him, in the second half of this year, with a probability of more than 60%, La Niña, the cold analogue of El Niño, will begin. In this case, the temperature on the planet will be below normal.
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