The El Niño phenomenon is also felt in Central America. Due to drought in some regions of Costa Rica and rising temperatures in the coming months, the country’s authorities have declared a “yellow alert” (level two out of four), at a time when the Amazon rainforest is suffering from a dramatic drought, apparently caused by El Niño and climate change.
The “yellow alert” means greater inter-agency coordination in the areas of water supply, energy, fire protection, agriculture and livestock, the Costa Rican government announced. From June to November, Costa Rica is in the rainy season, but this time a water deficit of around 50 percent is registered on the Caribbean coast.
“For a long time no measures were taken knowing that this would happen. While it rains in the Pacific, it is drier in the Caribbean. Although these phenomena can be attributed more to climate variability, it seems that we are in a serious moment,” explains Costa Rican ecologist Mauricio Álvarez to DW . “And the increase in temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which is the main generator of El Niño, will accelerate,” he adds. According to studies, the Central American region will experience a dry season with temperatures around one degree Celsius above normal.
The ecological emergency has an impact on various sectors
This meteorological phenomenon already affects agriculture, especially the cultivation of pineapples and bananas, livestock and all tourist activity, bearing in mind that Costa Rica depends to a large extent on the latter sector.
But while this is happening in Costa Rica and other Central American countries, the Amazon is experiencing a historic drought. Most rivers in the jungle, which are tributaries of the Amazon, are suffering from the current drought.
“It is very serious because the Amazon works not only as the lungs of the planet, but also as a temperature regulator. These phenomena create new scenarios of a big scenario that already existed, which is the scenario of climate change,” says ecologist Álvarez.
In this sense, we would face not only an ecological emergency, but also a possible humanitarian crisis due to food security. “Climate change is disrupting all sectors. And we are actually starting to see risks for water and food. It will also affect infrastructure, which will lead to further migrations linked only to climate change. So we will experience a climate and food crisis of large proportions,” says Mexican climatologist Ruth Cerezo .
More prevention than mitigation
Therefore, according to the expert, governments should start listening more to science and start planning “how we adapt to these changes and, above all, how we mitigate what we do so that conditions do not worsen”.
“For example, in the case of Mexico, the government’s priority is neither the environment nor prevention. This means that institutions dedicated to prevention are more likely to do mitigation. This means that they wait to respond when the disaster has already occurred.” Cerezo says.
Some Latin American governments have begun to take measures, such as those of Costa Rica, but have also decided to limit water supplies and call for efficient and rational use of said resource. “In fact, awareness and saving campaigns are good,” believes the environmentalist Álvarez.
However, to expert Cerezo, these types of measures seem a little unfair because they “shift the responsibility onto the user.” “Certainly we should all be aware that we are facing a difficult situation and I believe we should all consume more intelligently.” But in reality, prevention would governments should have invested,” says Cerezo. And he repeats: “We shouldn’t have figured it out. Because none of this is new, we’ve been warning for decades.”
(Yippee)
