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Impact of climate change
Environmental economics experts say although Africa contributes only about 5% to global emission of gases, the continent is now facing the dual onslaught of climate change and COVID-19 which has so far claimed over 100,000 lives.
According to the AfDB, before COVID-19 struck, Africa was home to six of the fastest growing economies globally. The pandemic has since caused the first recession in 25 years in most African countries.
AfDB says the impact of climate change which is currently setting back economies by US$7-15 bn could easily jump to US$50bn each year by 2040, a situation which will see Africa’s GDP decline by 3% by 2050.
The African leaders noted that supporting climate change adaptation is a core component of the Paris Agreement and they called on the international community to redeem all pledged commitments. Failure to reach previous finance goals only reinforces the need for greater resolve at COP26 in Glasgow scheduled for Nov.1-12 this year.
The Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme was developed jointly by the Global Centre on Adaptation and the AfDB. Its objective is to implement the vision of the African Union’s Africa Adaptation Initiative.
The programme is built to address the impacts of climate change, COVID-19, and the continent’s worst economic recession in 25 years. It revolves around several transformative initiatives among which is the climate smart digital technology for agriculture and food security which aims at scaling up access to climate-smart technologies for at least 30 million African farmers on the continent.
The programme has another component called the African Infrastructure Resilience Accelerator which also aims at scaling up investment for climate resilient urban and rural infrastructure in key sectors. These include water, transport, energy, and waste management for a circular economy.
The other component of the initiative is to empower youth for entrepreneurship and job creation in climate resilience. It aims to provide one million youths with skills for climate adaptation and support 10,000 small and medium size youth-led businesses to create green jobs. According to the UN Environment Programme, green jobs – also called eco or environmental jobs- are jobs that contribute to preserving or restoring environmental quality.
There is also the Innovative Financial Initiatives for Africa which is geared towards helping to close adaptation finance gaps, enhance access to existing finance, and mobilise new public and private sector investment.
President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the current African Union chairperson urged his fellow leaders to revisit their climate ambitions and accelerate the implementation of actions planned under national priorities.
“To do this, we will need to focus on actions to adapt to the impacts of climate change, these include nature-based solutions, energy transition, enhanced transparency framework, technology transfer and climate finance,” Tshisekedi said.
President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, and the current head of the AU-led Africa Adaptation Initiative, spoke of Gabon’s record in emission reductions. He noted that Gabon is one of the few countries in the world that is carbon positive.
“We have to insist that equal attention be paid to climate adaptation and mitigation in climate finance. Africa calls on the developed nations to shoulder the historic responsibility and to join the program to accelerate the adaptation in Africa,” Bongo said.
