ALESSANDRA PRENTICE

WITH soaring heat, rising seas, droughts and floods, climate change fallout is disproportionately affecting Africa, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said yesterday, while calling for more financing to help countries adapt.

Africa accounts for just 2 to 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but overall the continent is warming faster than the global average, and last year was one of the top four hottest on record, the WMO said in its report ‘State of the Climate in Africa 2021’.

It comes as Africa demands that richer, polluting nations stump up more money for adaptation projects on the continent and compensation for climate change-linked losses, topics that are expected to be in focus at COP27, the November UN climate summit in Egypt dubbed ‘the African COP.’

The WMO said the need for more investment in climate adaptation was crucial, estimating that climate impacts could cost African nations US$50 billion per year by 2030, with droughts and floods the top concern.

Some parts of Africa are seeing seas rise one millimetre faster per year than the global average, worsening the threat of severe coastal flooding.

The report also highlighted increasingly disrupted rain patterns that have led to the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in more than 40 years, and devastating floods that are hitting other parts of the continent more and more often.

South Sudan recorded its worst floods in 60 years last year, with over 800 000 people affected, while…