14 April 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz
A virtual Climate Emergency Summit, held on the 6th April ’21, hosted by the African Development Bank and Global Centre on Adaptation, saw representatives discuss the challenges of COVID-19 alongside climate change across Africa.
Africa’s leaders called for a scaling-up of finances to combat the effects of climate change across the continent, warning that the COVID-19 crisis has halted climate adaptation efforts.
Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba, said: “Every day the thunderstorms seem more violent. Flooding is more frequent and droughts are more severe,” he said. “Crops are failing. People are being forced to flee their homes (and) becoming climate refugees.”
The summit heard that adaptation and resilience finance accounts for only 20 per cent of total climate finance flows. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged G7 members, developed nations and Multilateral and National Development Banks to increase their allocation of climate finance for adaptation and resilience to a minimum of 50 per cent.
Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), pointed out that “Just 3% of international climate finance is reaching the continent“, arguing that developed nations have a responsibility to support Africa, given that despite the continent being the lowest emitter of carbon, it faces some of the worst consequences of climate change.
Whilst various climate adaptation efforts by countries across Africa and the AfDB have gone a long way to protect lives and livelihoods (such as green job initiatives, heat-tolerant wheat farms and large-scale land restorations), much more needs to be done through climate adaptation and resilience initiatives to support nations subject to sea level rise, coastal erosion and other climate change related effects.
