NYTimes | Even as drought and the effects of climate change
grew visible across this land, the Kariba Dam was always a steady, and
seemingly limitless, source of something rare in Africa: electricity so
cheap and plentiful that Zambia could export some to its neighbors.
The power generated from the Kariba — one of the world’s largest hydroelectric
dams, in one of the world’s largest artificial lakes — contributed to
Zambia’s political stability and helped turn its economy into one of the
fastest growing on the continent.
But
today, as a severe drought magnified by climate change has cut water
levels to record lows, the Kariba is generating so little juice that
blackouts have crippled the nation’s already hurting businesses. After a
decade of being heralded as a vanguard of African growth, Zambia, in a
quick, mortifying letdown, is now struggling to pay its own civil
servants and has reached out to the International Monetary Fund for
help.
