Somalia

LOCATED IN NORTHEAST Africa—the “Horn” of Africa—Somalia has a land area of 246,201 sq. mi. (637,657 sq. km.), with a population of 8,699,000 (2006 est.) and a population density of 34 people per sq. mi. (13 people per sq. km.). About 80 percent of the population is dependent on agriculture, though only 2 percent of the land is arable, with a further 69 percent used for meadows or pasture, mainly low-intensity grazing of cattle, goats, and pigs. Some 14 percent of the land is forested.

Because the country is underdeveloped, it has a very low level of electricity usage, with the carbon dioxide emissions per capita being the lowest of any country in the world, even though accurate statistics have not been available for the last 10 years. Official statistics from 2001 give the entire electricity production for the country at 245 million kWh, with consumption levels at 228 kWh, with 100 percent of all electricity coming from fossil fuels.

The effects of global warming and climate change on Somalia are expected to be extensive. The rising temperature is expected to make more of the arable land unusable for the growing of crops and to render the pasture land even less productive than it is at the moment. There is also the possibility of flooding in some low-lying parts of the country.

The Somali government sent an observer to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in Rio de Janeiro in May 1992, and ratified the Vienna Convention on 2001. Because of the instability in the country, there have been few measures introduced to combat some of the effects of climate change, and the current government has so far not expressed any opinion on the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.