WMO: African governments divert nearly 10% of their budgets to responding to climate extremes
By the Climate Centre
Africa bears an increasingly heavy burden from climate change and disproportionately high costs of adaptation, says a new report today from the World Meteorological Organization.
On average, African countries are losing up to 5 per cent of GDP and many are forced to divert nearly 10 per cent of their budgets into unplanned expenditure to respond to worsening climate extremes, the WMO says.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the cost of adaptation is estimated at up to US$ 50 billion annually over the next decade, says the State of the Climate in Africa 2023.
By 2030, it’s estimated that nearly 120 million “extremely poor people”, defined as those living on less than US$ 1.90 a day, will be exposed to droughts, floods and extreme heat in Africa if adequate response measures are not put in place.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said today: “In 2023, the continent experienced deadly heatwaves, heavy rains, floods, tropical cyclones, and prolonged droughts …
“This pattern of extreme weather has continued in 2024. Parts of Southern Africa have been gripped by damaging drought. Exceptional seasonal rainfall has caused death and devastation in East African countries, most recently in Sudan and South Sudan. This exacerbates an already desperate humanitarian crisis.”
‘Detrimental impacts’
Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, an African Union Commission ambassador, added: “[This] report highlights the urgent need for investing in meteorological services and early warning systems to help adapt to climate change and build resilience …
“Africa faces disproportionate burdens and risks arising from climate change-related weather events and patterns, which cause massive humanitarian crises with detrimental impacts on agriculture, food security, education, energy, infrastructure, peace and security, public health, water resources, and overall socio-economic development.”
In some of its own most recent actions, after above-average rainfall was forecast from August to October the IFRC’s Disaster Response Emergency Fund last month issued a grant of nearly 170,000 Swiss francs to enable the Malian Red Cross limit the impacts of potential flooding for 7,000 people in the south-east of the country.
This followed a similar “imminent floods” IFRC-DREF grant for the same amount for the South Sudan Red Cross, after the authorities there said they were “expecting unprecedented floods over large areas of the country”.
The WMO report was formally released today at the 12th Climate Change for Development in Africa Conference in Abidjan by the WMO, the African Union Commission, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology.
Floods in Africa do not only take a human toll but inflict serious economic setbacks too. Nancy Senjere (right), 60, and her mother, Tumbwene Musiku, were among nearly 4,000 people who got cash assistance to rebuild from IFRC-DREF through the Malawi Red Cross after El Niño-related floods at the beginning of the year washed their house away. Flooding in the country has become more severe with climate change, with more than 20 major floods in the last 50 years, the UN says. (Photo: Malawi Red Cross)