Africa must learn to adapt to the world’s changing climate if lives and livelihoods are to be saved, according to a report on the effects of global warming on the African continent.

Many Africans could be facing severe hunger problems as extreme weather conditions on the continent deplete food production, says the new study focusing on climate change in the Horn of Africa and East Africa. According to Mario Herrero, co-author of the report titled ‘Mapping Climate Vulnerability in Africa’, farmers will need help in adapting to the frequent droughts and floods that are expected to hit the arid and semi-arid areas in the region.

Speaking at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Nairobi, Kenya, Herrero said that smallholder pastoralists were the most vulnerable to the vagaries of changing weather patterns.

"Africa appears to have some of the greatest burdens of climate change and is also generally limited in its ability to cope and adapt. Yet it has the lowest per capita emission of greenhouse gases," he said.

The changing weather patterns and varying amounts of rainfall will also affect crop-livestock farming systems in Rwanda and Burundi, added the report commissioned by Britain’s Department for International Development.

"While a peasant farmer may not understand climate change, he appreciates that it is increasingly becoming difficult to time the planting seasons as rainfall is unpredictable," Beneah Daniel Odhiambo, a Geography professor at Kenya’s Moi University, said.

"As a result, there is high crop failure resulting in famine in many parts of Africa. Prolonged seasons of drought also cause the migration of people to other areas and is a potential source of conflict between communities competing for scarce resources," he added.

According to Herrero, efforts to reduce greenhouse gases must be accompanied by a quest to help poor countries adapt.

"People will experience great problems unless there is investment in adaptation options," he told IRIN, adding that water conservation projects in drought-prone areas could alleviate the problem.

Andy Atkins, advocacy director of the development agency Tearfund, said governments must take into account the effects of climate change before implementing projects.

"Before governments embark on major agriculture projects, they must understand how increasingly erratic rainfall will affect water supply and crop yields," Atkins said ahead of the launch of a report by Tearfund entitled ‘Overcoming Barriers’.

"By the end of the decade this climate-proofing of development must become the norm, not the exception. Without urgent action, billions of dollars of aid money could be wasted and many lives needlessly jeopardised," Atkins added.

Pastoralist communities are being urged to diversify their farming activities to limit the effects of global warming. According to Herrero, farmers need to introduce drought-resistant food crops, and rely less on livestock which could be wiped out by disease.

Adapting to climate change is high on the agenda at the UNFCCC which runs until 17 November.

According to Yvo de Boer, who heads the conference: "The urgency of adaptation has increased because of the awareness of the problem."

One of the topics under discussion is how to manage the UNFCCC's Adaptation Fund, designed to help developing countries adjust to the changing climate through changes in farming and water conservation.

Projects already underway in East Africa include the building of dams to save water in southern Kenya, and crop diversification in Tanzania.

A report published by the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), climate change could make it difficult for some developing countries to achieve the millennium development goals.

Tom Owiyo, one of the authors of the ILRI report said: "Climate change presents a global ethical challenge as well as a development, scientific and organisational challenge in Africa."

Separately, "LDC's [Least Developed Countries] development objectives cannot be separated from adaptation," said Lester Malgas of NGO Climate Action Network, South Africa.