In a first ever report, presented by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the challenges of adapting to the changing climate in Africa have been pinpointed.
The report titled Africa Adaptation Gap Report confirms that Africa is already committed to spending US$7-15 billion each year to adapt to climate change as a result of historical emissions.
The finding highlights important questions: What is being done in Africa to prepare for and respond to climate change and what should preparedness and response involve?
Adaptation costs can only grow from the bottom rung of $7bn, moving up the ladder as the world gets hotter.
The report says if the world continues moving towards a temperature increase of three to four degrees Celsius, funding for adaptation will need to increase by 10 per cent each year by 2020.
In other words, by 2040 adaptation could cost $45-50bn each year, a price Africa can hardly afford, as showcased in the Africa Adaptation Gap Report.
The report opens by determining that “Africa is a “vulnerability hot spot” for the impacts of climate change”.
It’s no surprise that this is the report’s highlighted conclusion.
Africa will experience a 10-percent higher rise in sea levels than the global average; if the world exceeds three degrees Celsius globally, “virtually all of the present maize, millet, and sorghum cropping areas across Africa could become unviable.”
If the world reaches four degrees Celsius, 20- to 30-per cent reductions in precipitation will occur in northern and southern Africa, respectively.
This is what spells disaster in a continent where 240 million are already malnourished and 96 per cent of agriculture is rain dependent.
Modernising and streamlining the current approach to climate resilience is what needs to be done according to UNEP.
This includes partnerships, information sharing, and collaborative planning. Africa has a great opportunity to make large strides because environmental resources and climate impacts do not stop at national borders, a truism Africa understands all too well.
This could be done through the facilitation of strong partnerships and information sharing across all countries; decision-making that incorporates risk analysis; demonstration projects and lessons learned; and adaptation planning.
Riding on the momentum ignited at the Africa Ministerial Conference for Environment (AMCEN) Fifth Special Session and more broadly at the First African Food Security and Adaptation Conference, Africa is well-positioned to develop an interstate program to respond to climate change.
While Africa has tried this avenue in the past, on a smaller scale, and would be wise to build and strengthen previous efforts across the continent, a modernised Africa adaptation program could equate to a panacea for Africa.
Proposed details include embedding climate change risk management approaches into all levels of investment and planning; facilitating access to adaptation, financing and maximising returns from international and regional financing mechanisms.
Also, it calls for facilitating a knowledge database (based on rigorous monitoring and evaluation) that will enable knowledge sharing in formats to allow comparisons across borders, sectors, and circumstances.
It is also important to aggregate lessons learnt from demonstration projects in countries into capacity development program and mainstreaming them to support national program on climate change, as well as to use regional approaches to catalyse the integration of adaptation to climate change into national planning and fostering greater institutional linkages.
Finally, it is key to include utilising emerging opportunities, such as “green jobs”, resulting from the implemented actions to guide countries in their transitions to low emission carbon, resilience development and green growth.
Modernising the approach to climate change adaptation is no simple task, but as one of the most affected regions in the world, Africa cannot afford to wait.
Collaboration, shared learning, and open-sourcing data are good places to start.
Africa, beyond any other continent, may very well be the best poised region to take on climate change adaptation where it starts at coastlines and tree lines, not national boundary lines.
