Looming Ethiopia famine highlights vulnerability to climate change

Chronic drought has sapped vast tracts of the north, central and eastern highlands, hitting crops and livestock as rain patterns have shifted. More than eight in ten people depend on rain-fed agriculture, according to Oxfam.

Intensified by El Nino, the dry spell brings into sharp relief the vulnerability of the continent to a changing climate. The UN climate science panel has marked its “low adaptive capacity” to heat waves and water scarcity if carbon emissions do not fall.