Despite contributing only 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, Africa needs an almost tenfold increase in climate adaptation funding to $100 billion a year.
Particularly if it aims at augmenting its infrastructure to equip weather early warning systems and protect its agriculture from climate change, the Global Center on Adaptation has stated.
According to the report seen on Bloomberg, Africa has current adaptation finance flows of about $11 billion a year in 2020.
However, the funding is a far cry from the $52.7 billion the continent’s nations have stated as the need, this estimate may not quite capture the real amount needed, the report said.
Nigeria and others face risk without $100 billion climate adaptation
Countries like Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda are among the worst hit by climate change. Africa is in the throes of its most severe drought in four decades, while cyclones and torrential rains regularly pummel southeast Africa, resulting in widespread flooding across the region in 2022.
- “As climate change accelerates its global rampage, the urgency of adaptation efforts cannot be overstated,” underscores the centre in its report. “Nowhere is this more pressing than in the most vulnerable regions, such as Africa.”
The new study inspects the nationally determined contributions submitted by African countries to the United Nations. Interestingly, about 28 of the continent’s 54 nations have included cost estimates for adaptation in their submissions. This omission has led the GCA to estimate that the nations’ stated requirements represent a mere 50% of what is needed.
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More disparities rear up as adaptation funds are highly concentrated, with just 10 nations siphoning off more than half of the available funds. Conversely, the bottom 10 nations are left to scrape by with less than 1%.
The GCA adds that 54% of this financing comes in the form of loans, further exacerbating the already crushing debt burdens of these nations.
A staggering 95% of funding is contributed by development finance institutions and governments, leaving a mere 0.3% to trickle in from the private sector. The rest is reliant on multilateral climate funds and philanthropic sources.
- “The private sector holds immense potential to supercharge adaptation financing,” asserts the GCA. In regions like South and East Asia, the private sector commands nearly 40% of total climate finance flows, encompassing both adaptation and mitigation efforts such as renewable energy infrastructure development.
The report reveals that 39% of climate finance flows to Africa are directed toward adaptation—a significant leap compared to the global figure of 7% of the $653 billion invested in climate initiatives in 2019-20.
- “Sub-Saharan Africa stands as the largest recipient of international adaptation finance, securing approximately 25% of international adaptation flows in 2019-2020,” reports the GCA. “Nevertheless, these adaptation finance flows remain woefully inadequate in absolute terms to meet the region’s dire needs.”
