New report reveals Africa’s rising environmental poverty

As Africa prepares its case for loss and damages compensation at the upcoming COP28, the state of the continent’s environment report 2023 paints a grim picture.

While the region has contributed little to climate change, it is paying the highest price. An analysis by Washington DC-based Brookings Institution says that seven out of the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations in the world are in Africa.

Based on the report’s details, the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) will have its work cut out in Dubai, where COP28 will take place. The AGN intends to push the Global North to fulfil the $100 billion climate finance commitment, set in 2009 but not yet met. It will expire in 2025.

Poverty

The report titled “Poverty of Environment” has chilling statistics that call for a sober approach by the African Group of Negotiators to push for climate justice in Africa as global warming has exceeded the limits of natural variability.

Climate experts say there is an urgent need to save the continent, change its state of the environment, and ultimately define its economic well-being in the next 50 years.

According to the report that has rich information on climate, biodiversity, land and agriculture, mobility, energy, health, water and waste, of the total number of deaths from extreme weather, climate, or water stress reported in the world in the last 50 years, Africa accounted for 35 per cent.

The report says the continent’s seas are rising by five millimetres yearly. And, despite contributing little to the problem, the report notes that reducing carbon emissions can prevent between 4,000 and 6,000 child deaths due to heat every year.

Once every 30 years, heat waves are projected to be longer than 180 days over parts of Central Africa. As the situation worsens, Africa will account for 40 per cent of global migration due to climate change, according to a World Bank report.

The World Bank reports that Africa is a migration hotspot. By the mid-century, millions of people could be on their way out of the continent, unable to contend with water scarcity and other socio-economic reasons.

“Climate change has been more rapid in Africa than the rest of the world. Africa is extremely vulnerable to and bears the brunt of drought, flooding, cyclones and other climate change-led weather events,” states the 276-page report published by Down To Earth, domiciled at the Centre for Science and Environment.

The report states that East Africa has experienced a rainfall shortage that has been below average for four consecutive wet seasons, the longest sequence in 40 years, leaving nearly 20 million people facing acute food insecurity across the region.

As the worst drought in four decades grips the Horn of Africa and declining rainfall continues in many parts of the continent, the World Food Programme warned that more than 20 million people in Ethiopia, Northern Kenya and Somalia are at risk of hunger. Almost four million children in Ethiopia were severely malnourished, accounting for around half of those suffering from malnutrition across the Horn of Africa.

“Millions were unable to generate income and access food due to the drought, which was likely to lead to widespread and severe levels of food shortage through at least mid-2023,” warned Save the Children.

The situation is worse in Somalia as nearly half of the country’s population faces crisis-level food insecurity, which might lead to thousands of deaths due to starvation.

The report further stated that this has exacerbated climate-induced shocks with conflict, inflation and forced displacement, causing further misery and millions of children facing increased risk of death from malnutrition.

The ongoing dry spell has displaced wildlife from their habitats in search of pasture and water, fuelling human-wildlife conflicts in Kenya.

Human-Wildlife conflict

“The drought-induced human-wildlife conflicts have resulted in outstanding unpaid compensation claims for wildlife victims of $21 million in the last two years,” stated the report.

Simultaneously, severe cyclones lashed many countries in Africa in 2022. At least four cyclones ravaged Madagascar in just one month in late January and February 2022, causing massive floods in Mozambique and Malawi.

While many factors continue to influence climate, scientists say the most significant known contribution to the enhanced greenhouse gas effect comes from burning fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The report reveals that human-induced global warming has been more rapid in Africa than in the rest of the world, according to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The average annual maximum temperature in Northern and Southern Africa is likely to be close to 4°C above normal, according to regional projections in the report released on August 9, 2021.

The median temperature in these regions will rise 3.6°C when the Earth warms at 2°C above pre-industrial levels, predicted the group of scientists who authored the report.

The annual minimum temperature is also projected to increase by over 2°C in some parts of North-Western Africa, the analysis showed. Southern Africa will also see a rise in minimum temperature.

According to the authors of the IPCC report, this will lead to warmer cold days in the future.

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