Dr Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank Group, implored European leaders at the Africa Climate Adaptation Summit which took place in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, this week that the continent needed a large amount of financing to help tackle impending climate change issues.
In attendance were heads of state, representatives of the UN, the AU Commission, the EU Commission, global development ministers, heads of major global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, bilateral agencies and multilateral development banks.
Adesina says that Africa is facing three major challenges which he called the 3 Cs – Covid, climate and conflict – with the solutions to the 3 Cs, which Adesina believes, are the 3 Fs – finance, finance and finance.
“Africa was still dealing with financing recovery from Covid-19 when conflict broke out as Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering soaring food prices and inflation,” said Adesina.
The African Development Bank announced on May 29 that a $1.5 billion Africa Emergency Food Production Facility will be made available to help mitigate the food crisis brought on by the ongoing war.
Adesina said the facility would support 20 million African farmers and provide access to climate-resilient seeds for maize, wheat, rice and soya beans and support the production of 38 million metric tons of food worth over $12bn.
But Adesina implored leaders at the summit that the continent needed a large amount of financing to help tackle impending climate change issues.
Africa is warming faster than any other region of the world, as predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that the critical global warming levels will be reached much earlier in Africa than in other regions.
“The effects will include devastating loss of crops, the decimation of livestock populations and livelihoods of pastoralists, while child wasting will increase by 37% in West Africa and 25% in East Africa. A one-degree increase in temperature is also associated with an 11% greater risk of conflict in Africa, as it triggers weather-related disasters and conflicts, with 4.3 million Africans already displaced due to climate change,” he said.
According to estimates from the African Development Bank, GDP losses per capita could be as high as 16% to 64% under a high warming scenario.
“In the face of all this deluge,” Adesina said, “Africa does not have the resources to tackle climate change. The continent receives only 3% of global climate financing. If this trend continues, Africa’s climate financing gap will reach $100bn to $127bn per year through (to) 2030.”
The current climate financing system is not meeting the needs of Africa as new estimates by the African Economic Outlook of the African Development Bank show that the continent will need between $1.3 trillion and $1.6 trillion between 2020 and 2030, or $118bn to $145bn annually, to implement its commitments to the Paris Agreement and its nationally determined contributions.
Africa has its own climate adaptation financing facility called the African Adaptation Acceleration Programme (AAA-P) which collectively mobilises resources for climate change, to advance the objectives of the African Adaptation Initiative.
“The African Development Fund’s 16th replenishment now presents such a unique opportunity,” Adesina said. “Never have the stakes been so high for Africa’s low-income and fragile states that depend on the ADF.
“Nine out of the 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa and all of them are ADF countries. Yet, ADF countries do not have access to global climate finance.”
To change this, the ADF has introduced a Climate Action Window. This window is hoping to mobilise $4bn to $13bn for climate adaptation for ADF countries. This will be used to support 20 million farmers with access to climate-resilient agricultural technologies, access of 20 million farmers and pastoralists to weather-indexed crop insurance, reviving 1 million hectares of degraded land and provision of renewable energy for about 9.5 million people.
Adesina said “commitments made by developed countries to provide $100bn annually in climate finance for developing countries are long overdue” and, in conclusion, said that “the past got us to where we are, now let us create a new path, a new future, our common future, where every African can thrive in a climate-secure world”.
Current Affairs