Reports Warn of Deepening Climate Crisis in Northern Uganda

30 January 2026, 10:26 am

By Otim Moses

Latest reports from 2024 and 2025 show that Northern Uganda is facing severe climate vulnerability, marked by rising temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall.

According to Uganda’s National State of the Environment Report 2024, the region is experiencing more frequent droughts, rapid natural resource depletion, and worsening environmental degradation. These changes are already fueling food insecurity and dwindling household incomes.

The World Bank’s 2025 Country Climate and Development Report warns that without urgent adaptation measures, Uganda could lose up to 3.1 percent of its Gross Domestic Product by 2050.

Heat stress alone is expected to cut labour productivity by 2.4 percent, with farming communities in Northern Uganda among the hardest hit.

Reports from NEMA also highlight accelerating deforestation, bush burning, wetland encroachment, and ecosystem loss, while water flows in the Aswa River and Kidepo Valley basins have become increasingly unpredictable.

Meanwhile, consultations held in Gulu last November by UNDP emphasized youth involvement in biodiversity conservation and called for stronger support mechanisms, including a Loss and Damage fund, to help communities adapt to the growing climate crisis.

The State Minister for Water and Environment, Hon. Beatrice Atim Anywar, said she has already started distributing improved cookstoves that use less charcoal as part of efforts to sensitize communities to reduce tree cutting for charcoal production.

She also appealed to the public to explore alternative sources of firewood for brick burning instead of cutting mature trees. Additionally, the minister urged communities to stop bush burning for hunting bush meat, noting that the practice destroys the environment and wildlife.