{"id":375627,"date":"2025-04-18T19:07:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T17:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=375627"},"modified":"2025-04-18T19:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T17:07:08","slug":"get-your-facts-straight-pbs-senegals-prospects-have-improved-amid-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=375627","title":{"rendered":"Get Your Facts Straight, PBS, Senegal\u2019s Prospects Have Improved Amid Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

PBS News ran a story claiming Senegal is suffering from climate change and that developed countries aren\u2019t keeping their pledges to help the country out. The first claim is definitely false, Senegal\u2019s economy has experienced significant growth during the recent period of slight warming. Another major metric for improved prospects, life span, has improved markedly as well. Concerning the second claim, it is unclear whether developed countries have made specific commitments to Senegal regarding climate funding, but it is certainly clear that Senegal gets billions in foreign aid each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story, \u201cSenegal struggles to cope with climate change despite promises of help from other nations<\/a>,\u201d consists of a series of interviews with and anecdotes shared by select Senegalese with PBS about the troubles they face, which they tie to climate change and lack of Western funding for climate mitigation. In particular, PBS\u2019s story focuses on woes of Senegal\u2019s fishing industry and non-governmental organizations\u2019 (NGO) claims that the world isn\u2019t providing promised funds to held the country contend with climate change. Even while acknowledging funding from the World Bank built a sea wall which helped prevent flooding, beach erosion, and benefited tourism, Fred de Sam Lazaro reporting for PBS says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[E]fforts so far by the World Bank and donor nations have done little to help those hardest hit. Around Saint-Louis, which has long been pummeled by devastating floods, a two-mile seawall was built and fishing families relocated farther inland. They\u2019re safer, they say, but hardly secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

. . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their struggle is starkly visible in fishing communities up and down the coast. A backbreaking morning\u2019s worth of work, and all that this boat brought back today was one crate about a quarter filled with anything that is marketable out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate change has diminished the quality of fisheries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem for Lazaro\u2019s narrative is that he points to no data, nothing identifiable as evidence, much less definitive proof, that climate change is behind the hardship that Senegal\u2019s fishing communities are facing, which is, in fact, leading some people from the fishing villages to migrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fishing is a staple of Senegal\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSenegal has one of the world\u2019s richest fishing grounds. With an annual catch rate of 450,000 MT per year, for the last five years. Senegal has been the second largest fish producer in West Africa,\u201d the U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/a> states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PBS presents no evidence, because there is none, that climate change is worsening fishing conditions or contributing to depleted fish stocks. In fact, while the Senegalese fishing industry\u2019s catch varies from year to year, the value of its catch<\/a> has risen fairly steadily, suggesting the industry as a whole is doing well, despite problems discussed below. Accordingly, Senegal\u2019s fishing industry must look to another cause for its woes. And there is a more viable culprit: illegal fishing by foreign operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senegal\u2019s fishing fleet is made up of traditional small boats that can\u2019t compete with the foreign commercial trawlers which have increasingly violated Senegal\u2019s 12-mile exclusive fishing zone over the past decade. The government\u2019s efforts stop foreign fishing is underfunded and has largely been ineffective. As one source notes<\/a>, \u201c[i]t has been estimated that the country\u2019s fishermen lose 300,000 tonnes of fish each year to illegal fishing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a problem even Lazaro recognizes, saying \u201c\u2026 complicating matters, they complain large foreign trawlers whoop up a lot of what\u2019s left.\u201d Because commercial fishing is capital and energy intensive, commercial trawlers wouldn\u2019t come half-way around the world to poach in Senegal\u2019s fishing grounds if it didn\u2019t hold large fish stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign trawlers are forcing Senegal\u2019s small artisanal fishers to sail their small boats farther from shore, yet those boats are ill-suited to deep sea fishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having disposed of the misleading assertion that climate change is harming Senegal\u2019s fishing industry, broader data also puts lie to the PBS\u2019s assertion that \u201cSenegal struggles to cope with climate change \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the recent period of modest warming Senegal\u2019s economic growth has generally been strong<\/a>. In 2023 Senegal\u2019s GDP grew by 4.6 percent, an enviable rate for any developed country. For comparison, U.S. GDP grew by just 2.5 percent in 2023. As recently as 2017, Senegal\u2019s GDP grew by 7.4 percent and in 2021 by 6.5 percent. In fact, from 2014 through 2023, Senegal experienced GDP growth averaging 5.34 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And from 2000 through 2022<\/a>, Senegal\u2019s life expectancy increased from 56.9 years to 67.9 years, adding more than ten years to the average Senegalese\u2019s lifespan in just over 20 years, during a two decade period that climate alarmists have misleadingly refered to as the warmest decades on record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agriculture comprises a large part of Senegal\u2019s economy, and there, as in other countries and regions around the world, climate change has contributed to improved growing conditions and crop yields. Most of Senegal\u2019s crops are grown for domestic consumption, rather than trade in international markets. Among the top crops grown in Senegal are, maize, mangoes, millet, rice, and sorghum. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization<\/a> data show that from 1990 through 2023:<\/p>\n\n\n\n