07 Aug 2019

The past four years have been the warmest in the whole world , says the chief meteorologist in the Department of Meteorological Services, Mr Radithupa Radithupa.

In an interview, Mr Radithupa said high temperatures had become the norm, adding that in some countries, such as the United Kingdom, France and the southern part of Italy, summers had been characterised by heat waves with temperatures reaching up to 45 degrees celsius.

He admitted that to some extent, this is going to be a phenomenon that will be continuously experienced in the country, adding that it should not be surprising to see temperatures reaching 40 degrees celsius.

He said Batswana should get used to extreme temperatures every season since this was a trend that had been going on for some time now.

Mr Radithupa said the question should not be whether the country was going to get high temperatures, but rather, “we are now faced with the concern of what is going to be our adaptive capacity and how we are going to deal with this trend of adverse weather conditions”.

To this end, he said Climate Change Policy had been tabled in Parliament, with both a Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan in place to operationalise it.

He said issues such as community settlement, public health and climate-smart agriculture would be discussed by different sectors.

Mr Radithupa said one of the adaptive measures that caould be taken to curb the extreme temperatures was to build traditional huts saying they did not accumulate much heat and were well ventilated compared to the modernised houses.

He said the record breaking highest maximum temperature recorded in Botswana was 45 degrees celsius, recorded in Ramotswa on January 7, 2016.

He encouraged Batswana to adopt precautionary measures that will help them to survive the high temperatures that come with the adverse weather conditions. These measures include drinking a lot of water to keep hydrated and avoiding direct sunlight. ENDS