It’s almost three weeks now since the Guardian tried to blame Malawi’s weather-related problems on climate change, in an article headed “‘Without water nothing can exist’: the Malawians repeatedly displaced by drought”. I’m a bit late to this party, but it’s a subject I want to explore, since the Guardian approach here is very familiar – its modus operandi, one might say. I have commented on this before, with regard to similar climate scare stories – see, e.g. The Gambia Gambit; Niger Negatives; Volte-Face; and The Cancun Con.
In each of those cases the Guardian tried to put the blame for problems with multifarious causes fairly and squarely on climate change (or, as the Guardian always prefers to put it, the “climate crisis”). In each of those cases, I suggested, this wasn’t an appropriate conclusion. And now we find the same tired old trope being trotted out by the Guardian with regard to Malawi.
Millions of rural Malawians, it tells us, are “struggling with increasingly unpredictable rainfall and droughts made more ferocious by the climate crisis”. It goes on to say that Malawi’s poverty (according to the World Bank, it’s the world’s fourth poorest country), and its reliance on unirrigated agriculture, make it “particularly vulnerable to climate-fuelled disasters”. As well as droughts, the Guardian tells us that cyclones are killing and displacing Malawians, having “increased in intensity and frequency in recent years”. In 2023 Cyclone Freddy killed over a thousand people in Malawi.
We are then told that the World Bank forecasts millions of climate refugees, including in sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately its estimates don’t include forecasts for Malawi, but no matter – the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says that 400,000 people moved within Malawi during last year’s drought. And according to World Bank data “[a]verage temperatures in Malawi between 2015 and 2024 were 0.63 degrees higher than a century earlier”.
So there it is. The climate crisis is devastating Malawi and its people. Case closed.
Or is it? The World Bank website does indeed show a graph indicating an increase of 0.63C in Malawi as claimed, but questions remain around that. First, is such a modest increase really going to be the cause of dramatic changes in Malawi’s climate? I don’t know, but I doubt it. Secondly, the data underlying the displayed graph is not referenced, so we have no way of checking it. Thus, I turned to the website of Malawi’s Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services to try to track down the sources of the temperature data relied on by the World Bank. An impressive number of weather stations are displayed on the map, from Kameme in the north to Nyachilenda in the south. The problem, however, is that many of these seem to have been established very recently (Kameme in 2020 and Nyachilenda in 2019, for example). Nkhota Kota dates to 1961, as do Thyolo, Bolero, Mzuzu, Nkhata Bay, Dedza and Mangoche. Salima dates to 1953. Karonga was established in 1952. Mzimba dates to 1946. A few more date to the 1980s, but the vast majority seem to have been established in the 21st century, most in the last decade. I may have missed one or more, but I can’t find a single weather station pre-dating the Second World War. It strikes me, therefore, that claims regarding precise temperatures dating back to 1901 (as is the case with the World Bank graph) are likely to be based more on “guestimates” than on hard data.
On the other hand, Malawi’s history is known for rather longer than most sub-Saharan countries, due to the activities of David Livingstone and those who followed in his footsteps, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, when the country was known as Nyasaland. In Malawi, representatives of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), Free Church of Scotland, and established Church of Scotland, founded mission stations in 1861 (at Magomero), 1875 (Cape Maclear), and 1876 (Blantyre), respectively. And so, a paper headed “Narratives of 19th century drought in southern Africa in different historical source types” includes rather a lot of information relating to Nyasaland and its earlier droughts. While precise data may be unavailable for these periods, we are not ignorant of the weather and climate of the time:
Sources such as newspapers and weather diaries are rich in qualitative and quantitative observations suitable for the reconstruction of temporal and spatial patterns of weather and climate, as well as climate-related natural disasters. In contrast, letters, reports and personal journals, especially those written by missionaries, provide additional qualitative narratives through which to investigate the vulnerability of past societies and economies to climate variations, and to explore past discourses and social representations of climate.
Diaries spanning this period tend to be dominated by weather descriptions. We learn of the terrible 1861-3 drought. The diaries and letters from the Second Zambesi Expedition (1858-1864), led by David Livingstone, for example, provide useful climate information for Malawi at this time. A little further south, and newspaper reports confirm how severe this drought was. The Natal Witness, 19th September 1862, contained this plea:
Sir, I painfully exclaim, no new grass in the principal grazing districts of Natal, where, in favourable seasons, the best cattle, the best mealies (corn/maize], and the best wheat are produced? For nearly three years we have been sufferers by drought, which friendly visitors from the South-West say goes towards establishing this as a sheep country […] It is neither a good sheep country, cattle country, grain country, or good for anything else; neither will it be unless we assist nature. These never-failing rivers can be diverted easily from their course high up towards their sources, and be made to wind about along the surface of the country, always keeping high levels, to irrigate nearly the whole of the available cultivable land from the Drakensberg to the coast.
Note the plea for irrigation to solve the problem, an issue which the Guardian reminds us still affects Malawi a century and a half later.
Missionary reports confirm the severity of the drought, and of the displacement of local peoples:
[The BaTlhaping people]…formerly of the Kuruman […] have been compelled to vacate those places from the insufficiency of water and are seeking another locality. At present, they are making a temporary stay at Ilosi about 30 miles north of this place and are only waiting till the rains to be able to proceed further into the interior and may eventually settle down in the neighbourhood of the Molopo River.
Or this from 7th April 1862 in Zululand:
I am afraid we are going to have another year of famine. In some districts the crops are an utter failure and the people have dispersed themselves elsewhere in search of food.
In terms of population displacement, the numbers being displaced by droughts now are probably a reflection of the fact that Malawi’s population has increased massively since then. African Futures tells us that “its population size relative to its geographic size makes it one of the ten most densely populated countries in Africa.” That of itself must be problematic. However, the astonishing rate of population increase must be borne in mind. An appalling drought today will cause far greater hardship that a drought of similar intensity in Malawi in the mid-late nineteenth century. Population density alone will see to that:
The population has significantly increased from 3.6 million people in 1960 to an estimated 21.1 million in 2023. On the Current Path, Malawi’s population will reach 33 million by 2043. By mid-century, it is likely that Malawi will be home to 37 million people, and by 2063, the population is expected to reach 43 million.
Discovering the size of Malawi’s population in the later nineteenth century is problematic, but given a population of 3.6 million in 1960, and given its rate of growth, I would expect the pre-1900 population to be less than one million. The Guardian article does, rather grudgingly, acknowledge that “[t]he rising population is also adding pressure”, noting that the country’s population has doubled in the last 30 years.
There was another severe drought from 1876-1879. Although available diaries for the case study areas mainly focus on day-to-day weather with little reflective commentary on climate impacts/responses, there are exceptions. For example, there are a small number of long-form journals, as illustrated by this diary entry of 9 November 1878 by John Gunn of the Livingstonia mission, Malawi, commenting on drought and tsetse fly:
This afternoon I had a walk round the plain. It occupied me three hours’ hard walking […] Large areas of the plain are being brought under cultivation by the natives, yet much fairly good soil remains available. It seems to me that tsetse are visibly diminishing. This may, however, be more attributable to the parched state of the plain, consequent on the severe drought of last season, than to the fact that we are encroaching on their haunts and driving them away.
Southern Africa also suffered another severe drought from 1895-7, though Malawi appears to have escaped its worst effects. The problematic climate continued into the twentieth century, however, and Malawi was badly affected. The Nyasaland Famine of 1949 is well documented by Wikipedia, and the link is well worth following, for several reasons. As well as offering details of the extent of the southern African drought in 1947-9, it also discusses the ongoing problems, thus:
Malawi suffered widespread food shortages in the 1990s and 2000s, and several of the issues which arose then were the same as those already apparent in 1949. These included the use of land for farming tobacco and other non-food crops, the growth of an underclass of land-poor or landless rural people who were dependent on casual work and the strict governmental controls on growing and marketing of certain crops. In more recent times, as in 1949, it was the lack of food reserves within the country and delays in importing relief supplies that turned shortages into famine. Even the idea, probably incorrect in 1949, that soil fertility was declining and soil erosion was becoming critical had become true by 1992, when cultivation had spread up hillsides and onto steep Rift Valley slopes, where erosion was inevitable and unsustainable.
In other words, Malawi’s problems are complex, and the simplistic narrative that puts the bulk of the blame on climate change is well wide of the mark.
One last citation regarding droughts should, I hope, make the point. The Environment and Society Portal website has a fascinating article about the problems encountered by early white colonists and businesses keen to use Malawi’s rivers for transport. It suggests that shortage of rain was a regular occurrence:
The African Lakes Company (ALC) was formed in 1878 to navigate “the rivers and lakes of Central Africa, and especially of those rivers and lakes which communicate with the Indian Ocean by the River Zambezi and the River Zambezi itself, with a view to develop the trade and resources of the country, and to encourage legitimate traffic amongst the natives.”
The expansion of European empires into Africa was aided by navigable river networks that made efficient and cheap water transport possible. Rivers, however, are not constant and predictable, as the ALC would discover in colonial Nyasaland (now Malawi)…
…Livingstone and his successors nevertheless believed a Zembezi-Tchiri river route could become a key artery for international trade from the Shire Highlands to the coast, perhaps because they had visited the region when river levels were particularly high. From the late nineteenth century, however, lake levels were in decline across eastern Africa due to climatic changes. Lake Nyasa’s levels dropped and would not rise to similar levels until the 1930s, by which time significant river transport had come to an end altogether.
As water levels dropped, by the 1890s Katunga (Chikwawa) was abandoned as a port. The function of its successor at Chiromo was also threatened, and in 1903 steamers from Chinde had to unload their cargoes at a Portuguese station, over 60 kilometers to the south of the Mozambique-Nyasaland border. The river in the dry seasons was now transformed into a series of shallow pools and sandbanks….
Althought the Guardian article focuses on drought (which, as we have seen, is nothing new in Malawi), it also talks briefly about floods:
Gladys Khumbidzi first moved 22 years ago, because of repeated floods.
Well, floods aren’t a new phenomenon in Malawi either. Wikipedia again:
A shortage of manpower and disastrous floods in the lower Shire valley caused a drop in [cotton] production to 365 tons in 1918.
Surely climate change must be causing some problems in Malawi? The Guardian suggests that cyclones are getting worse there. Malawi, it says, is:
…vulnerable to climate-fuelled disasters, including cyclones that have increased in intensity and frequency in recent years. In 2023, Cyclone Freddy killed more than 1,000 Malawians.
Since 2019, about 950,000 people have been displaced by cyclones, most temporarily, some multiple times…
The seriousness of Cyclone Freddy cannot be denied, but a century earlier there was another terrible cyclone. They didn’t give them names in those days, and in the absence of 24/7 television and the internet, news wasn’t reported so avidly or in such detail. However, the Christchurch Star of 8th March 1922 managed a short piece reporting on the damage caused to the port of Chinde. Admittedly Chinde is not in Malawi, but it is very close to it, in what is now Mozambique, being at the point where cyclones from the Indian Ocean make landfall, close to where the Zambezi reaches the ocean on its way just south of Malawi. The reporting in 1922 was somewhat understated. Today, I have little doubt, it would have made banner headlines alongside claims that this is climate change in action. Back then the report simply said:
Further details of the Chinde cyclone show that ten steamers were sunk or driven ashore and eight Europeans and sixty natives drowned. The town is practically blotted out.
At least one key issue was omitted from the Guardian article – deforestation. Its scale is mind-boggling (according to the African Institute for Development Policy, though there are plenty of other sources saying essentially the same thing):
Between 1972 and 1990, Malawi lost over 40% of forest coverage and lost 15% of its forest and woodland habitat from 1990 to 2005. Such high rates of deforestation can be attributed, in large part, to unsustainable land management and agricultural practices….arable lands are often over-cultivated, overgrazed, and degraded by lack of crop variety. As lands are overused, the yields diminish and farmers are forced to expand to new plots, often requiring cutting down more trees, repeating a vicious cycle….In addition to cutting down trees to meet food needs of Malawi’s growing population, trees are also used as biomass which currently fuels 89% of Malawi’s energy supply.
What can we conclude? My conclusion differs in one material respect from that reached by the Guardian. It states that “Unpredictable weather fuelled by the climate crisis is forcing millions from their homes, with many struggling to access water. Save for the “climate crisis” reference, I wouldn’t argue with the claim. But I do argue with the invocation of a “climate crisis”, because the article presents no evidence that Malawi’s weather is significantly different from its weather 100 or 150 years ago. Malawi’s problems are significant, and should not be lightly dismissed. On the contrary, blaming them on a “climate crisis” risks failing to address the country’s many underlying problems, and lets its politicians off the hook.
Climate Scepticism 
The simple answer: stop reading the climate hoax bought-and-paid-for Guardian.
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I found this a very interesting piece, Mark, given my connection with Malawi.
I’m sure you’re absolutely right in your assessment of the present situation. Many of my friends who run NGOs in the country are trying their hardest to provide proper crop irrigation which is not dependent on the vagaries of weather, and to try to reduce the amount of destruction caused by deforestation, by providing, for example, better cooking facilities and better fuels for the same, so that charcoal is greatly reduced.
I am actually going to pass the article to two of my friends there, to see if they have anything to add.
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“The Guardian has more than one million paying
subscribers and regular contributors following a surge of interest and
support over the past year… 60% year-on-year growth…new figures seen by Press Gazette show”… new figures seen by Press Gazette show”, 2022.
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Mark – thanks for another well researched article. Found this which may be of interest to you & readers –
“Overview of the Malawi energy situation and A PESTLE analysis for sustainable
development of renewable energy”
Won’t let me give a link to it unfortunately,
Just read the abstract & this caught my attention –
“About 89 percent of the Malawi’s energy is sourced from traditional biomass mainly fuel wood which has led to fuel wood demand exceeding sustainable wood supply. Only 8 percent of the population in Malawi have access to electricity; however installed capacity of electricity generation is lower than demand which leads to load shedding by the supplier and consequently electricity supply in Malawi is unreliable. Certainly, solar, non traditional biomass (crop residues and forest residues not burnt on three stone fireplaces, and biogas) and hydro can contribute significantly to Malawi’s inadequate and unreliable energy supply. There is also potential for wind and geothermal in the country but further resource mapping is required to comprehensively determine these resources. Although the Malawi Energy Policy lays out steps towards improving the energy supply in the country, unreliable financing mechanisms for large scale energy projects, shortage of trained human resource, lack of coordination among local institutions, unclear regulation enforcement and sometimes political governance impede sustainable delivery of energy projects in Malawi”
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What should we make of that ubiquitous phrase “unpredictable weather”? We oughtn’t just wave it through without examination. Perhaps it means that weather forecasts are becoming less accurate. Or maybe it refers to a more rapid switching between periods of wet and dry. Or maybe it’s about greater variability of some meteorological variable in a season or between years. Whatever it means, it must surely be subject to statistical significance testing against a stated null hypothesis. It gets let through mainly because it is never defined in such a manner as can be quantified, even to the level where we are told what aspect of the weather is being referred to. Just another feature of the miasma theory of climate change – a toxic mist of undefined general evil that needs no further elaboration.
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Doug Brodie,
I read the Guardian because (and I give it credit for this) it’s still free to do so online). I also do so because it has disproportionate influence in the new eco-establishment, among the people who unthinkingly accept both that there is a climate crisis and that we in the UK can somehow solve it
I feel it’s worth while pointing out it’s more absurd and fact-lite pieces from time to time.
As Max Beran says, they get away with it by, inter alia, using vague language that enables them to avoid being pinned down.
Dfhunter usefully reminds that while the west wrings its hands, much of Africa fails to have reliable energy.
I will be interested to learn if Mary Young receives feedback as to the points I have raised. My delving into the historical record is one thing, but you can’t beat direct knowledge from people who are in situ.
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Masterful debunking of a tired narrative Mark.
I wrote this in 2019, challenging the Con narrative that tropical cyclone Idai was the fault of rich countries:
https://cliscep.com/2019/03/23/the-conversations-fact-free-claim-that-rich-countries-are-to-blame-for-idai/
Here is what the IPCC said about tropical cyclones in its Special Report 2015:
Which makes a mockery of the Graun’s lazy, fact-free attribution of recent severe tropical cyclones to a mythical ‘climate crisis’ which the Graun itself also invented in 2019.
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Thanks for this v. interesting essay. And yes, on your final point, deforestation has had a huge, huge impact on East African nations – loss of the big forest species, leading to less cloud formation and thus lower rainfall, aridification through loss of deep rooted species that break into aquifers, fragile tropical soils exposed and blown away. Having flown over the Tana Delta near Lamu in the 1990s, I have seen the red earth of Kenya’s fertile highlands, gushing out into the Indian Ocean like a gigantic blood spill. And this is a nation that has so little agriculturally viable land.
There are all manner of interesting documents that infer repeated droughts. When I lived in Kenya during the 1990s I came across the Kenyan government 1980s census lists. It was accepted practice to establish older respondents’ ages according to local/community chronologies dating back into the 19th century. (Some Kenyans were exceedingly long-lived – again not what we Westerners would expect). These chronologies were lists of named events that a given community agreed on. Cycles of famine through the late 19th century are notable in the naming.
Another source of such events are circumcision lists which may date back to the 1700s in some communities, and wherein a particular ceremony (held roughly every 10 years) was named according to noteworthy circumstances at the time. These also often reflected times of food shortages.
Then there is the anthropological literature which shows how drought, disease and other catastrophes were catered to by long-held traditional strategies. E.g. Before colonial occupation, when the rains failed for too long on the drought-prone plains of southern Kenya, the southern and eastern communities of the Akamba hunting-cattle owning-farming people were wont to seek refuge among kinfolk who did not live in such stricken areas. This had nothing to do with altruism/charity. Those seeking refuge from their own territories, until it was feasible to return, would bring valuable skills or commodities to the host community – e.g. hunting skills, knowledge of medicinal herbs, the provision of cattle that could be ‘borrowed’ by the hosts to facilitate marriage contracts. Pragmatic sharing of resources to mutual advantage in other words; also the expectation that patronage would be reciprocated should the host community ever be in similar need.
Such strategies became outlawed under the colonial administration of the 20th century. Not only were indigenous communities confined to designated territories/reserves which individuals could not leave without written permission (The reserve system still basically persists in terms of much current land ownership and occupancy), but all land became designated Crown Land. When Kenya became independent, Crown Land became state owned land. My own theory is that much of the impoverishment seen today has its roots in wholly unsuitable British notions of land ownership and management (with strains of feudalism based on a peasant workforce thrown in) that were left behind.
So much easier to call everything a climate crisis. So very ignorant. And often so patronising of African peoples’ centuries of resourcefulness that has been over-ridden by misguided alien, mostly self-serving strategies unsuited to tropical eco-systems or the cultural perspectives of indigenous communities.
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Tish Farrell ,
Thank you for taking the time to leave such a detailed and informative comment.
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As with all things African, before you blame anyone, look at the money trail.
Unfortunately, in many or most African states, generous sums of funds are poured in but with a loss rate of nearly 100% due to “misallocation” the funds achieve nothing.
Follow the money, look at the politicians, look at their off shore accounts, then sit back and wonder why with so many willing to help, there are so many willing to take.
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Mark, there’s another player in Malawi’s part of the world, the Indian Dipole:
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Of course folks at the Guardian see humans causing this:
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With uncanny timing…..
“Malawi heads to the polls amid economic crisis
Two former presidents are on the ballot, alongside the incumbent. But frustration is increasing with the government as the high cost of living continues to bite hard.”
https://www.dw.com/en/malawi-heads-to-the-polls-amid-economic-crisis/a-74007809
Regrettably, it seems as though the Guardian-type “climate crisis” narrative is the default option for much of the media, not just in the UK:
…Climate change is impacting Malawi’s agriculture dependent economy. A devastating cyclone in 2023 and drought further pushed Malawi into economic instability.…
Those two sentences were thrown in quite casually, with no justification, as though they are a given.
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Apologies for the delay, Mark. My Malawian friends have all been occupied by the election. But I have heard back from one, who is a farmer: this is what he has said:
‘So climate change is a major driver of land and weather issues in the country but not the only cause. Human practices like deforestation, poor land management, unsustainable agricultural practices, increased population/land pressure play a big role in making the country more vulnerable.
It is then making things complicated if we go back to the mid 19th century. Was there land pressure to cause the rampant droughts that hit most parts of southern Africa? Neither there was deforestation as it is witnessed that there were thick forests and the missionaries would struggle coming down to the region. But does this mean that climate change is the major cause? Definitely not.
We just need to start adopting modern farming practices if we’re to cub these issues. Am personally turning to organic farming and this what am advocating for but not trying to dispute the existing farming practices. But smart agriculture is worth it to restore back the depreciated land. Tree planting is also worth it to bring back the glorydays when the rains were sufficient.
The country is not food secure because for decades, we’ve been relying on rain fed farming. Irrigation can help us cub the issues of hunger. I believe, we have enough waters with perennial sources which if we can seriously invest into, can surely help us have bumper yields and lower the poverty levels.
So in short, am not in agreement that climate change has caused more havoc on the land and weather issues but it’s a co-contributor.’
In fact, my friend, along with others, and myself, worked hard to develop a system of irrigation which would mean that it was not dependent on tradition or the vagaries of weather; however, I was totally unable to find a funding stream; but it’s still on the back burner.
Another of my Malawian friends developed a method of using trash to make bricks, thus obviating the need to use charcoal, helping the problem of deforestation.
It annoys me that so much money goes inter-government, and doesn’t necessarily reach those who need it most, and who could do most with it.
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Mary Young,
Many thanks for taking the time and trouble to do that, and please thank your friends too. It has been gratifying to notice that the Cliscep website has had some Malawian visitors over the last few days!
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That’ll probably mostly be my friends, then, Mark.
I will thank them. I may have one or two other comments to add as time goes on.
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In my comment above (14 Sep 25 at 11:33 pm) I quoted from an abstract which had this statement (partial quote) –
“Only 8 percent of the population in Malawi have access to electricity; however installed capacity of electricity generation is lower than demand which leads to load shedding by the supplier and consequently electricity supply in Malawi is unreliable.”
Can anyone explain what that means?. My best guess is that they meant to say “electricity generation is higher than demand which leads to load shedding” but I may be wrong.
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dfhunter,
No, I can’t see the sense in the statement either. I suspect your alternative version is the correct one. Installed capacity as a reference seems odd when talking about load shedding too (unless talking about something reliable where capacity and generation achieved are close to being the same thing). I think they must be referring to both generation and to it being higher than demand, not lower.
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They had it right, though it’s poorly worded. If the cake is too small, some people don’t get a slice – that would be cake shedding.
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Jit, you make my head hurt with that. Are you saying the small cake gets mostly gobbled up leaving cake that hungry others could eat/are barred from the cake shop, so gets put in the bin?
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“Only 8 percent of the population in Malawi have access to electricity; however installed capacity of electricity generation is lower than demand which leads to load shedding by the supplier and consequently electricity supply in Malawi is unreliable.”
Translating…..demand can exceed the system’s capacity to supply. When that happens the supplier reduces demand by shedding load – cutting off supply to some customers. This probably means rolling blackouts, like S. Africa, which play havoc with businesses which need reliable power.
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