False: Bulgaria and South Africa are experiencing climate change.

“No climate change in S Africa and Bulgaria where jab rates were much lower,” said a tweet that received over 300+ views.

This was a reply to a tweet questioning whether climate change or egg consumption could have caused a spike in deaths of vaccinated people in Europe.

FACT CHECK

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as variations in the solar cycle. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. This is according to the United Nations. Effects include hotter temperatures, severe storms, increased droughts, warming or raising the ocean and loss of species among others.

CLIMATE CHANGE IN SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa has both sub-tropical and temperate climate conditions, which are influenced by the ocean along the east and west coasts as well as the interior plateaus, bringing a cool, wet climate in the Drakensberg region, to hot, humid conditions in the northeast. The country has a Mediterranean climate in the southwest and a warm dry desert environment in the central-west and northwest, according to the 2021 World Bank’s Climate risk country profile South Africa analysis report.

The analysis states that data from the Emergency Event Database: EM-Dat database, presented in an interactive chart below, shows the country has endured various natural hazards due to climate change, including floods, landslides, epidemic diseases, and storms.

South Africa’s 1st Annual Climate Change report published in 2016 by South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment states that South Africa’s economy and its people face risks due to the potential impacts of ongoing climate change. “These risks are likely to increase significantly if global warming exceeds the ambition stated in the UNFCCC’s Paris Agreement of remaining below a limit of 1.5 to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. This is because South Africa’s climate is projected to warm between 1.5 and 2 times as fast as the global average, potentially resulting in drastic socio-economic and environmental effects,” it reads.

According to the 2021 State of Climate Change in Africa report, South Africa faced droughts and heavy rains as a result of climate change patterns in that region. These results exceeded the average. “Southern Africa also faced serious flooding in 2022. In April, 459 people were killed and a further 40,000 were affected by floods and landslides in the South African provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape,” a climate change analysis article by the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction states.

CLIMATE CHANGE IN BULGARIA

Bulgaria is a country located in the southeastern part of Europe characterised by two climatic regions: a continental climate in the north and a Mediterranean climate in the south. The country’s Mediterranean climate tends to be hot and dry in the summers and cool in the winters. The mountains that separate the northern and southern regions have a significant impact on the country’s temperature. The continental north tends to have higher variation in temperature and precipitation compared to the coastal regions according to the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal

Bulgaria is classified as having a high risk of river flooding, urban flooding, and wildfires. It has a medium risk of experiencing earthquakes, water scarcity, and extreme heat, and a low to very low risk of landslides, coastal flooding, and storms. Flooding is the natural disaster with the highest incidence, affecting 80,000 people annually, according to data from the Emergency Events Database: EM-Dat, presented in the World Bank 2021 Climate Risk analysis report.

Rating/Verdict:

False, there is climate change happening in South Africa and Bulgaria. These two countries have been experiencing impacts from global climate change patterns.

This fact-check was produced by Debunk Media Initiative with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, International Fact-Checking Network and African Fact-Checking Alliance network.

Reagan Kiyimba

2021 Africa Check Award-winning Fact-Checker, Media Challenge Initiative Fellow class of 2020, 2022 Code For Africa and International Fact-Checking Network Climate Change Fact-Checking Fellow, 360 Digital Sherlock, trained by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab in open-source intelligence.