How Climate Change Is Feeding Violent Extremism in the Horn

Jan 26, 2020 | Peter Kagwanja
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Oddly, humour in Kenya’s social media space is drawing on perhaps the world’s deadliest link between climate change and conflict.

“Never underestimate the power of nature and small people working together. It took locusts for President Uhuru Kenyatta to sack Mwangi Kiunjuri,” goes one tweet, commenting on the removal of Kenya’s Agriculture Cabinet Secretary on January 14, 2020.

In a bizarre way, the tweet on locust and Kenyan politics mirrors the global debate on the nexus between climate change – including above-average temperature, excessive or insufficient rainfall, desertification and environmental degradation –and conflict in the world’s most vulnerable countries in the Horn of Africa.