Kenyans have been warned that later this century they will experience extreme heat that will be unbearable.
A scientific study in an American University has revealed that the conditions will be too extreme and will be caused by climate change.
“People living in already warm climates will have to endure increasingly intolerable conditions,” stated Salvi Asefi-Najafabady, a University of Virginia researcher who led the study.
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His sentiments were echoed by his fellow researcher and ecologist Deborah Lawrence who added: “Earth system models give us a sense for the scope and magnitude of the problems we face.
“We looked at where heat stress will occur and compared it with where people are likely to be.”
More than 70 million Kenyans and Ugandans currently experience 20 to 25 days of dangerous heat per year but later in the century, this could rise to 125 days.
Densely populated and economically insecure parts of Kenya and Uganda will feel heat stress most acutely, suggests the study, which is published in the scholarly journal Climatic Change.
The researchers urged the country to embark on meaningful action on climate change to prevent this disaster.
This comes just a few days after President Uhuru Kenyatta urged members of the public, corporates and other groups to heed the appeal by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry by planting trees as well as donating trees to Kenya Forest Service (KFS) or county governments.
This is in line with government plans to increase the forest cover in the country to 10 percent before 2022.
According to the 2015 National Forest Policy, the current forest cover in Kenya is 6.99 percent, which is below the requirement of 10 percent.
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