Africa, the continent already suffering from the climate crisis

For Africa, the climate emergency is not an upcoming threat, but a crisis that is already hitting millions of people, often with catastrophic consequences for them.

While a drought in southern Madagascar is pushing more than a million people to the brink of famine, torrential rains from South Sudan, Niger, Uganda, Kenya, Senegal and other countries in Africa they displaced 1.2 million people last year.

Prolonged droughts, the advance of deserts, the increase in the temperature of the oceans, the greater variability of rainfall and the multiplication of extreme meteorological phenomena such as cyclones, floods or floods are leaving their scars on this continent.

“Many of these extreme weather events are not new to Africa, but the climate crisis is increasing in frequency and intensity, leaving unprecedented impacts,” says Dr. Linda Orgallo of the IGAD Center from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital ( Intergovernmental Authority on Development) for Climate Prediction and its Applications (IPAC).

“Africa is the continent most affected by this crisis due to its limited capacity to cope with or adapt to climate impacts. Most of the communities depend on rainfed agriculture, lack early warning systems or do not have infrastructure or resources to resist these blows, ”adds Orgallo.

Faced with the climate emergency, Africa has the worst cards, and the scenarios predicted by organizations such as the World Bank are not encouraging: even if urgent measures are put in place to mitigate the effects of global warming, extreme weather events will force tens of millions of Africans to leave their homes over the next 30 years.

“The measures we take in Africa can only reduce the damage of climate change a little. Our actions will not prevent disaster. The vast majority of polluting gases come from the most developed countries, so the ball is in the hands of those nations, ”Sudanese activist Nisreen Elsaim told EFE.

“It is time for the peoples of Africa – he adds – to pressure world leaders to stop behaving like chickens and start making important decisions, even if they are difficult.”

A different roadmap for Africa

Although Africa is the continent that produces the least greenhouse gases -around four percent of global emissions-, its inhabitants have a lot at stake in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in 2021 (COP26).

For 14 days, the leaders of nations from around the world will hold meetings in Glasgow (United Kingdom) to consolidate a collective response to the climate crisis and reduce polluting gas emissions.

But the common agenda proposed by African negotiators, led by Gabonese Tanguy Gahouma-Bekale, is different from the one announced by Western experts.

In addition to more economic cooperation to install environmentally friendly energy infrastructures on the continent, these will demand “that developed countries avoid transferring their climate responsibilities, in particular the reduction of polluting gas emissions, to developing countries”, in Gahouma-Bekale’s words.

Although African leaders recognize the need to urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the most industrialized nations, they reject that their countries, with less prosperous economies, should follow the same roadmap.

“Africa cannot sacrifice its plans to meet Western climate targets,” wrote Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in a recent opinion column for The Wall Street Journal.

According to this president, the context of Africa is so different from that of industrialized countries that, if it accepted an accelerated transition to renewable energy, it would have more problems attracting foreign investment due to a reduction in its competitiveness.

“The transition to green energy will take time. Africa will need to use fossil fuels while working on that transformation. We Africans have the right to use cheap and reliable energy sources. Forcing Africa to follow a certain roadmap will hamper our fight against poverty, ”added Museveni.

An opportunity to change

Activist Marie Christina Kolo answers a phone call from Efe while packing her suitcase: she is about to travel from Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, to Glasgow to participate in COP26.

“When we talk about the climate emergency we tend to mention figures: the increase in temperature, the number of citizens affected by a drought or a flood… Often, those numbers fill international meetings like COP26, forgetting the names and stories of the people who suffer the climatic impacts, and the human rights that are violated ”, says Kolo.

“The COP26 conversations should take into account those stories, those realities,” sums up the eco-feminist activist.

For Kolo, “it is horrible to observe the consequences of the climate crisis, but we cannot allow this sadness to destroy our desire to fight.”

“I think we must identify this moment – he proposes – as an opportunity to rethink our societies and consumption models, and imagine a greener, more supportive future that takes into account gender inequalities and all marginalized groups.” (I)