The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has published its report "State of the Climate in Africa" on climate change in Africa, revealing that the continent warmed by around 0.3 degrees between 1991 and 2023.
Africa is facing disproportionate burdens and risks arising from weather events linked to climate change.
Extreme weather events resulting from global warming have led to massive humanitarian crises with adverse impacts on agriculture, food security, education and safety, public health, water resources, and overall socioeconomic development. According to the WMO report, North Africa experienced the fastest warming, with temperatures that were at times unbearable.
In Agadir, a new temperature record of 50.4 degrees was recorded. In other African countries, extreme rainfall caused flooding. In September and October 2023, around 300,000 people across ten African states — including Niger, Ghana, and Nigeria — suffered from flooding. Climate change is driving increasing drought. The southern African country of Zambia experienced its worst drought in 40 years in 2023, affecting around six million people. Other African countries were also hit by droughts last year. On average, African countries are losing between two and five per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) due to climate change. Many of them reported spending up to nine per cent of their budget on managing the impacts of climate change. The WMO warned that by 2030, up to 118 million people in Africa living on less than $1.90 (€1.72) a day could be exposed to extreme weather events such as droughts and floods.
The UN organisation is calling for an increase in funding for early warning systems, as currently only 40 per cent of people in Africa have access to systems that warn of climate-related extreme weather events.
Climate protection advocates have long warned that Africa is among the most severely affected regions by climate change, despite having contributed only marginally to dangerous global warming. At the next UN climate conference in November in Baku, Azerbaijan, financial support payments from wealthy industrialised nations to developing countries for tackling and managing climate change will be a central focus.
