Climate change in Africa

• 1. Introduction

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  Climate change in Africa poses a paradox that is as striking as any on earth: the continent contributes the least to the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming, yet faces some of the most severe consequences. Africa is warming faster than the rest of the world on average. Surface temperatures across the continent have risen by about 1 degree Celsius since the late 19th century, though in some parts of the Sahel the minimum temperature at the end of the dry season has climbed by as much as 3 degrees Celsius. That additional warming of 0.3 degrees Celsius recorded between 1991 and 2021 outpaced the 0.2 degrees measured across the previous six decades. The questions ahead are pressing ones. How does a continent where 55 to 62 percent of the workforce in sub-Saharan Africa depends on climate-sensitive agriculture absorb shocks of this scale? What happens to coastlines and ancient cultural sites when the sea keeps rising? And what does adaptation look like when research money and policy infrastructure are both in short supply? Those are the threads this documentary follows.

• 2. A Continent at Risk

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  Between 2001 and 2021, over 2,000 public health incidents were recorded across Africa. More than half of them, 56 percent, were connected to climate change. That figure comes from analysis cited in the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report, and it frames just how embedded climate disruption already is in daily African life. The reasons for the continent's extreme vulnerability are multiple. Large portions of the population live in poverty with limited capacity to absorb shocks. Governments classified as Least-Developed Countries face particular challenges when responding to climate impacts because they lack the financial reserves and institutional infrastructure that wealthier nations use as buffers. Per-person greenhouse gas emissions across Africa remain low compared to other continents, yet the cost of the crisis lands here with disproportionate force. African countries currently face climate-related losses averaging 2 to 5 percent of GDP every year. A 1 degree Celsius rise in average world temperature is projected to reduce Africa's GDP by 2 percent; a 4 degree rise could cut it by 12 percent. Meanwhile, a 2022 survey conducted by the European Investment Bank across ten African nations found that 88 percent of more than 6,000 respondents said climate change was actively hurting their lives, and 61 percent reported that environmental destruction had already impacted their income or livelihood.

• 3. Food, Farms, and Famine

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  Smallholder farmers operating on rainfed land account for 80 percent of cultivated land across sub-Saharan Africa. That single statistic explains why shifting rainfall is so destabilising. Agriculture contributes 15 percent of total GDP in sub-Saharan Africa on average, and 70 percent of the population draws their livelihood from rain-fed farming. The IPCC projected in 2007, with high confidence, that climate variability and change would severely compromise agricultural productivity and access to food across the continent. Yields from rainfed agriculture in some African countries could be reduced by up to 50 percent. A 2019 locust invasion in eastern Africa, which was partly attributed to warmer temperatures and heavier rainfall, showed what a climate-amplified pest event looks like in practice. Crop pests already account for roughly one sixth of farm productivity losses under current conditions; climate change is expected to accelerate that. In Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands, over 70 percent of livestock mortality already results from drought, and 52 percent of the cattle population in those zones faces risk from extreme temperature stress over the next ten years. Between 2014 and 2018, Africa recorded the highest levels of food insecurity in the world. The connection between nutritional collapse and micronutrient deficiency is direct: vitamin A and iron deficiencies were especially common during droughts when food options narrowed sharply. In southern Madagascar in July 2021, the World Food Programme declared a famine and stated that climate change, not conflict or war, was its sole cause. It was the first famine attributed entirely to climate change.

• 4. Rising Seas, Shrinking Coasts

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  Around the year 2000, some 54.2 million people lived in Africa's highly exposed low elevation coastal zones. That number is projected to reach around 110 million by 2030 and between 185 and 230 million by 2060. Average regional sea level rise of around 21 centimeters is projected by 2060. At that point the differences between climate scenarios matter less than local geography and population density. Twelve major African cities are estimated to face cumulative damages of US$65 billion under a moderate climate scenario by 2050. Those cities are Abidjan, Alexandria, Algiers, Cape Town, Casablanca, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Durban, Lagos, Lome, Luanda, and Maputo. Under the high-emission scenario, damages rise to US$86.5 billion; with high ice-sheet instability factored in, they reach US$137.5 billion; and when low-probability, high-damage events are included, the figure climbs to as high as US$397 billion. Alexandria alone accounts for roughly half of the total across those scenarios. Hundreds of thousands of people in its low-lying areas may need relocation within the coming decade. In East Africa, at least 750,000 people are likely to be displaced from coastal zones between 2020 and 2050. At the end of the century, under a 4 degree warming scenario, ten important cultural heritage sites face flooding and erosion. They include the Casbah of Algiers, the Carthage Archaeological site, Robben Island, and the Island of Saint-Louis. A further fifteen Ramsar sites and natural heritage reserves, among them the Watamu Marine National Park and the Marromeu Game Reserve, face similar risks.

• 5. Disease in a Warmer World

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  Africa already hosts more than 90 percent of annual global malaria cases. As temperatures rise, the geography of that burden is shifting. The areas most likely to sustain year-round, high-risk malaria transmission are projected to move from coastal West Africa toward the region between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, known as the African Highlands. The mechanism is specific: the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which is carried by the Anopheles mosquito, can only survive and replicate inside the mosquito when temperatures stay above 20 degrees Celsius. Warming highlands are crossing that threshold more often. Increased humidity and rainfall also promote the replication of the parasite's mosquito host. Populations in those highland areas have historically had little exposure to malaria and therefore little acquired immunity, meaning new outbreaks will encounter communities with limited biological defences. Vector-borne diseases beyond malaria, including dengue fever and schistosomiasis, follow similar logic: their ranges expand and intensify as temperatures and rainfall patterns shift. A conflict between climate projections and observed data complicates planning. Models generally show that future warming should expand malaria's range further, but local factors including population density changes and mosquito behaviour shifts introduce uncertainty that limits forecasters' ability to prepare outbreak responses in advance.

• 6. Unequal Science, Unequal Funding

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  An analysis of climate research funding from 1990 to 2020 found that 78 percent of money allocated to study climate change in Africa was spent at European and North American institutions. A greater share went to former British colonies than to other African countries. This pattern, sometimes called parachute science, has two compounding effects. Local researchers lack the funding for experimental work, which limits their ability to produce the groundbreaking findings that redirect policy. Simultaneously, research agendas driven from outside the continent tend to underweight questions that matter most in the Global South, including practical adaptation strategies. The data gap affects financial planning as well. Accurate sustainability evaluations are difficult to produce because of limited investment frameworks, missing data, and restricted managerial capacity. Fewer than half of Africa's top pension funds currently report information on their sustainability policies. In 2022 the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development founded the African Regional Partnership for Sustainability and SDG Reporting to address part of this gap; by March 2023 it had 53 members, drawing from 27 African nations. According to a 2023 study, 59 percent of African banks have a climate change policy in place, with a further 22 percent planning to introduce one, and 65 percent already factor climate risk into decisions about new clients or projects.

• 7. Paths Forward

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  During the 21st Conference of the Parties in 2015, African heads of state launched the Africa Adaptation Initiative. Its steering committee includes the African Ministerial Conference on Environment Bureau and the chair of the African Group of Negotiators, and it is supported by the European Union. The financing gap it must help close is substantial. The International Monetary Fund estimates that sub-Saharan Africa needs US$30 to US$50 billion in additional funding each year to adapt to climate change. Total climate investment in sub-Saharan Africa stood at US$43.8 billion in 2019-2020, representing 3 percent of the global total. Climate financing in the Middle East and North Africa totaled US$32.6 billion in the same period. About a third of all African climate funding currently flows to just five major markets: Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa, each capturing 5 to 7 percent of African climate investment. The IPCC identifies five principles that underpin effective adaptation on the continent: supporting autonomous forms of adaptation; centering cultural and rights considerations including the participation of women, youth, and poor communities; combining flexible learning approaches with technology; building resilience through low-regrets options; and encouraging institutional learning over time. Kenya's Climate Change Act, gazetted in 2016, offers one concrete example of this framework in practice, establishing a national authority to oversee climate resilience and low-carbon development across both national and county government levels. The Congo Basin's forests, which a Nature study indicates will absorb 14 percent less carbon dioxide by 2030 compared with 2005-2010 levels and none at all by 2035, represent the clearest signal yet that adaptation alone will not be sufficient if global emissions continue on their current path.