(Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP) (Photo by TONY KARUMBA/AFP via Getty Images)
African nations should take the opportunity to put forward Africa’s climate needs at COP27 in Egypt in November, said Marlene Achoki, the global co-lead of the Care Climate Justice Center.
She told a virtual press conference that loss and damages in Africa arising from the adverse effects of climate change are a daily reality and must be on the United Nations Climate Change Conference agenda, in particular financial pledges from developed countries.
And mitigation and adaptation strategies to deal with the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis needed to be addressed.
African countries are marginal contributors to carbon emissions yet are bearing the brunt of extreme climate change. The World Bank estimates that, by 2030, 118 million people on the continent will be exposed to drought, floods and extreme heat if action is not taken now.
Achoki said a number of problems arise from loss and damage, such as financial concerns where African countries take huge loans to address the effects of climate change and are stuck in climate debts.
“It is not just for countries and communities who did not contribute to global warming to pay for the costs of richer countries. They are not even providing finance to support these countries to build resilience but also to build back better after the impacts of loss and damage.”
The Mail & Guardian reported that the African Development Bank has said Africa will need $1.6-trillion from 2020 to 2030 to implement its nationally determined contributions — the plans to cut emissions and adapt to the harmful effects of climate change. Africa received $18.3-billion from 2016 to 2019, which is not enough. This means the continent will struggle to meet its goals, but COP27 is an opportunity to right this wrong.
“We cannot wait any longer. We are living in the reality of loss and damage,” said Achoki. “People cannot continue talking and providing lip service without action, it is not helping the people who are suffering.”
Another problem she highlighted was that many women and children are displaced and exposed to gender-based violence, including in shelters where many people are crowded together.
Food insecurity and malnutrition
Abyan Ahmed, Care’s global humanitarian nutrition adviser, painted a grim picture of the worst drought in 40 years that has affected the Horn of Africa. She says women and girls are the worst affected by the drought. Women have to travel long distances to fetch water and look for food.
“Women are forced to prioritise their children for food, so they are eating less food or are skipping meals, putting them at risk for malnutrition.”
Ahmed said the Horn of Africa, which spans Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea and parts of Kenya, Sudan and Uganda, are food insecure. About 21 million people — seven million of them children — are projected to be in crises of acute food insecurity between now and the end of the year. This means people will be migrating in search of food and water.
“What we are doing in response to that as Care is we are trying to target the most vulnerable, including women, children, the elderly, and the displaced in drought-affected areas.”
There was a need for more climate change investments, especially in agriculture, she said, in particular food production and food fortification.
“We need to urgently act now, and we need to invest in climate-smart interventions, we need to ensure that we are adapting to climate change and that our programmes are designed to reduce the carbon footprint,” says Ahmed.
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