Climate scientists say they have found that Africa urgently needs a ten-fold increase in funding for climate adaptation as the climate crisis intensifies on the continent.
This is after new research from the Global Center on Adaptation(GCA), an international organization that works as a solutions broker to accelerate action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international to the local, in partnership with the public and private sectors released this week showed that climate adaptation finance flows to Africa must increase up to ten-fold to over US$100 billion per year by 2035 to build resilience against the growing impacts of climate change.
“Without such investment, it is estimated that the continent could lose out on as much as USD$6 trillion of economic benefits by 2035 as every $1 invested in adaptation has been shown to generate a return between tow to ten dollars ,” they highlighted.
The new findings come after in 2019 GCA released its flagship report on adaptation which put forward a bold vision for how to transform key systems to be more resilient and productive and was designed to inspire action among decision-makers, including heads of state and government officials, mayors, business executives, investors and community leaders.
The 2019 report highlighted that adaptation can produce significant economic returns, as well as numerous social and environmental benefits. Specifically, the analysis found that investing $1.8 trillion globally in five areas from 2020 to 2030 could generate $7.1 trillion in total net benefits. “The five areas include: early warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, improved dryland agriculture, mangrove protection and resilient water resources. These areas represent only a portion of the total investments needed and total benefits available,” GCA then said.
According to the experts, Africa’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) currently estimate the continent requires US$52.7 billion a year for adaptation (or 2.5 per cent of its GDP) but this new research reveals this is a vast underestimate as only half of the NDCs (28) calculate costs for adaptation.
“The NDCs were also prepared at a time when climate impacts were not projected to occur as quickly or as strongly as they are. Of the NDCs that do include adaptation costs, over half (70 per cent) do not allocate the necessary adaptation funding to any specific sector.
Africa only received USD$11.4 billion in adaptation finance in 2019-2020 and the increase in 2021-2022 is likely to be modest. At this rate, Africa will receive USD$182 billion by 2035 for climate adaptation, less than one-tenth of the up to USD$1.7 trillion by 2035 the new research estimates it needs. Loans were the most utilized instrument to deliver adaptation finance in 2019-2020, which combined with surging interest rates, is contributing to Africa’s poorest countries falling into a debt-trap,” they further explained.
Professor Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the GCA did not mince his words.
“The impacts of climate change are being felt around the world, but nowhere more acutely than in Africa. Adaptation finance must be scaled up dramatically before it is outstripped by accelerating climate impacts which would further widen the adaptation funding gap.
The actions we take now to increase adaptation finance flows to Africa are critical to the continent’s capacity to respond to climate impacts and transform climate adaptation into a growth agenda for the continent,” he said.
At the moment, ten African countries (Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, Tunisia and Ghana) currently receive over half of the continent’s adaptation finance whilst the ten most climate-vulnerable countries (Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Chad, Senegal) only receive 18 per cent of Africa’s adaptation finance.
In May this year, President William Ruto called for a concerted global effort to fight the climate crisis saying the consequences are a threat to all nations. The head of state added that priority should be on mitigation measures and not a blame game on who contributed to it or not.
President Ruto further called on developed countries to provide the expertise to leverage Africa’s abundant renewable energy. The president made the remarks during a strategic dialogue on the African climate action summit held at the GCA in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
In July this year, while meeting European Union Energy and Environment Ministers to discuss the plans and objectives for the upcoming world’s biggest climate meeting (COP28) that will be held in Dubai, UAE from end of November to early December for two weeks, Dr Sultan Al-Jaber, the president-designate, maintained that the presidency was committed to ensuring a just energy transition that makes finance accessible to all, particularly in the Global South, to address the climate crisis.
“I am encouraged to believe that donors will finally meet the $100 billion commitment this year and we also need to operationalise the loss and damage fund this year. We need to streamline and simplify access to climate finance and find new and scalable mechanisms to channel substantial private sector investment into the Global South,” said Dr Al-Jaber.
