Africa contributes only 4% to global carbon emissions, paling in comparison to European and North American countries, as well as China. Yet, the continent is arguably the worst hit by the effects of climate change: sub-Saharan Africa continues to reel from a series of droughts, floods, cyclones and other climate-related disasters.
Africa’s youth have said they have little to look forward to and are now demanding decisive action: Earlier this month, some 150 young people from across the continent met in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, at the inaugural Youth Forum on Adaptation Finance in Africa (YOFAFA).
Many hope this conference will be regarded as a historic moment for youth engagement on climate action, where Africa’s youth called on developed countries to make more funds available to help the continent cope with the effects of climate change.
Africa: A baking continent
Mitigating the effects of global warming is a particularly difficult uphill struggle in much of Africa: Temperatures in fragile states across the continent are already high because of their geographic locations.
However, the State of the Climate in Africa 2022 reportshows that the rate of temperature increases in Africa has accelerated significantly in recent decades, with weather and climate-related hazards becoming more severe each year.
By 2040, fragile states could face 61 days a year of temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) on average — four times more than other countries around the globe.
From Nigeria to Madagascar, severe floods and droughts now hit the African continent each yearImage: DW
Many African governments, meanwhile, have to rely on aid to provide even the most basic of services to their citizens. Tackling climate change, it would appear, typically falls by the wayside in this context.
Chronic lack of climate funds
This is why financing climate change adaptation projects in Africa has become a major priority for Africa’s young people, with a focus on showcasing projects that will help people survive in the extremely hot future to come.
But the chronic lack of adaptation funding is making it increasingly hard to cope on the continent.
During the two-day YOFAFA conference in Cameroon, young Africans advocated for increased funding for climate resilience, calling on the international community to “commit to more than doubling adaptation finance in Africa,” according to event organizers.
Local solutions in need of global funding
Meanwhile, there already are many ideas to champion climate adaptation in Africa.
In Cameroon, Mbong Kimbi of the African Coalition for Sustainable Energy and Access has been working with farming communities to help them adapt to the realities of unpredictable rains and deteriorating soils.
“We teach farmers how to produce their own bio-fertilizers and bio-spray, how to use them correctly on their farms, and to follow up, because bio-fertilizers have many chemicals that will help the soil and consequently help their crops,” Kimbi explained. “The result last year was very good for the pilot phase of the program. We are going to go into the next phase, but one of the problems we have is securing financing.”
Across Africa, there are protests calling for more efforts to mitigate the effects of climate changeImage: dapd
Indeed, the shortfall to pay for the necessary projects is huge — and growing.
According to Augustine Njamnshi, the executive director of the African Coalition for Sustainable Energy and Access, Africa would need more than $50 billion (€45.5 billion) annually until 2030 to sufficiently deal with its climate adaptation challenges.
Yet between 2019 and 2020, the continent received only $11.4 billion in total to that end, creating a substantial backlog.
“Following the Adaptation Gap report that was published a few days ago, the current adaptation finance gap is now estimated at $194 billion to $366 billion per year,” Njamnshi said.
In Africa, climate change is igniting armed conflict
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Extreme droughts and floods
The effects of that dramatic shortfall can be felt across Africa. As the International Monetary Fund reported, fragile states in the Global South suffer more from climate-related shocks than other countries: Each year, three times more people are affected by natural disasters in such vulnerable states, with more than twice the share of theirpopulations being displacedby such events.
Kenyan climate activist Anna Shampi speaks openly about what an unmitigated changing climate has done to her community, painting a grim picture for the future: “We have had six failed rainy seasons, and this means that every year pastoralists have been losing their cattle, which is their means of livelihood.”
She said there is a need to come up with projects to enable communities to adapt to such cataclysmic changes, but, so far, there seems to be little initiative on the part of governments.
Floods are destroying livelihoods across the African continentImage: Amas Eric/DW
The fight for dwindling resources could also result in clashes between farming communities and the herders, Shampi said.
“Any time the rain comes — I don’t know for some reason — it comes down so heavy,” she said. “It’s always flooding. If we have drought, it’s extreme, if we have rain, it’s also on the extreme side, on the flooding side. Most of our houses are temporary, so they end up being swept away.”
Fighting for the survival of a continent
Shampi’s scenario is one of countless similar narratives across Africa. The dire funding situation weighs heavily on the wallets of other African countries as well.
There is some change on the horizon — although it might be a case of too little, too late: 11 African countries are now spending five times more to cope with the changing climate than they spend on health care, said Njamnshi.
But with billions missing to meet targets, this might only amount to a drop in the ocean.
That is why the young people gathered in Yaounde said COP28, due to be held in the United Arab Emirates from late November to mid-December, should address these disparities and substantially increase adaptation finance for the continent least responsible for climate change but most affected by it.
Africa’s inspiring climate activists
Activists in Africa are fighting hard against the effects of climate change, which is already severely affecting the continent while inspiring others to also champion environmental interests.
Image: FADEL SENNA/AFP/Getty ImagesDonning a neon-green bicycle helmet
Environmental activist Andy Costa from Ivory Coast is also known as Africa’s cycling ambassador. He uses a variety of techniques to champion the use of bikes, including wearing a bright green bike helmet at last year’s COP27 — as seen here in a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. He’s having some success, with the first cycle paths now to be built in Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast.
Image: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFPThe royal art of planting trees
She’s only 10, but Kenya’s youngest climate activist, Karen Kimani, has already planted 10,000 trees, most recently in the company of King Charles III in the Karura Forest on the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi. She had earlier asked the king in a letter to accompany her — and he promptly came. Her role model is Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.
Image: HIL NOBLE/AFP/Getty ImagesNigerian environmental hero
Nigerian environmentalist, poet and human rights activist Nnimmo Bassey (seen here at COP27 in 2022) has been fighting for decades against oil extraction in the Niger Delta. In 2010, he received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the alternative Nobel Prize, for his commitment to the conservation of natural resources and was also one of Time magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2009.
Image: Sean Gallup/Getty Images’Our house has long been on fire’
When droughts and floods began to devastate communities in her home country of Uganda, Vanessa Nakate protested for climate justice. Today, the 27-year-old founder of the Rise Up movement leads international campaigns to raise awareness of the effects of climate change. She has received several awards for her work. Her book “Our house has long been on fire” was published in 2021.
Image: SIMON MAINA/AFP
Agronomist Cecile Ndjebet from Cameroon has been committed to the fight for environmental protection for decades. She founded the organization Cameroon Ecology in 2000 and has since been involved in global initiatives advocating forest conservation, gender equality and land rights for women. She was awarded the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity in 2023 in recognition of her climate defense efforts.
Image: Armando Franca/AP/picture alliance Stopping the sands of time
Another environmentalist who inspires young people in Africa is Aminetou Bilal. With her NGO Selfie Mbalite in Mauritania, she is committed to environmental education and combatting desertification. In 2018, she was selected as a participant in the Obama Leaders for Africa initiative. She also founded Agro Fish Farm with the aim of making fish farming more accessible for rural communities.
Image: En Action/DWPutting ecosystems before profit
The founder of Fridays for Future in Senegal, Yero Sarr, opposes the extraction of natural gas in his home country. In 2022, he called on the German government to stop its plans to support a fossil fuel project there. The exploitation of natural gas deposits off the coast is damaging ecosystems, fishing, a sea turtle sanctuary and coral reefs, Sarr said.
Image: Larissa Schwedes/dpa/picture allianceCampaigns against global warming
The water crisis in Cape Town mobilized Ayakha Melithafa to campaign against global warming. In 2019, the South African filed a complaint with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child alongside other stakeholders. The 21-year-old is now a member of the African Climate Alliance and a sought-after public speaker. Here, she is seen addressing the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York.
Image: Mike Segar/REUTERS
Edited by Louisa Schaefer and Sertan Sanderson
Source link : https://amp.dw.com/en/africas-youth-demand-funding-to-deal-with-climate-chaos/a-67453042
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Publish date : 2023-11-28 08:00:00
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