In Africa, countries are spending billions to cope with climate crisis
African countries, Kenya included, are spending a fortune to adapt to the effects of climate change, a new report has shown. The report, Adapt or Die, by Power Shift Africa shows the brunt African countries will bear despite contributing the least to the climate crisis. It highlights that Kenya will require substantive international climate finance, investment and partnerships to achieve its adaptation goals. Other countries that were part of the study include Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan and Togo. Already, the report shows that in Africa, the impact of climate change has resulted in the loss of lives, livelihoods and has had an impact on the people’s socio-economic status. “Kenya is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and variability. Recurrent extended droughts and intermittent floods continue to undermine the resilience of vulnerable sectors (including agriculture, livestock, water, health, and energy) and affect the country’s economic development,” says the study by the Nairobi think tank. Mohamed Adow, Power Shift Africa director, said in a statement that Africa is facing an adaptation crisis despite the reality of climate change being alive. “This report shows the deep injustice of the climate emergency. Some of the poorest countries in the world are having to use scarce resources to adapt to a crisis not of their making,” he said. “It is vital that countries heed these warnings and do much more to provide the finance needed to tackle these adaptation needs. It is simply not acceptable for the costs to fall on those people who are suffering the most while contributing the least to climate change,” he added. The study comes ahead of today’s launch of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The UN agency’s report, entitled Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, is expected to sound a warning on the worsening impacts of the climate crisis. Mr Adow said this year’s Conference of Parties, that will be held in Africa, expansively discusses adaptation especially for Africa. “This needs to be the ‘Adaptation COP’ and address the historic imbalance which has seen adaptation neglected for far too long. We need to see massive levels of new funding committed at COP27 as well as a fund set up to deal with the permanent loss and damage caused by climate change,” he said.