Climate crisis: Africa needs all the financial help it can get

climate crisis - climateaction

Climate crisis: Africa needs all the financial help it can get

In various parts of Africa, floods have been destroying houses and farmlands – the worst flooding these communities have seen in years. To add to that, the death toll in these communities keeps increasing and people are becoming overwhelmed with these occurrences.

Make no mistakes, floods aren’t the only problem that these communities face. In fact, drought, wildfires, and extreme heatwaves have become common phenomena that are all now part of their everyday lives.

For a fact, the climate crisis is a global one as many countries are suffering its effect albeit in varying degrees.

Developed countries are better equipped to adapt to the climate crisis because they have a far better advantage in terms of infrastructure, systems, and financial capacity to revive their economies.

However, the case is not the same for developing countries which are mostly located in Africa as they are most vulnerable to these extreme weather events.

These communities, already facing harsh economic challenges and ill-equipped to mitigate climate disasters, sink deeper into poverty as their homes, farms, businesses, and schools are either washed away or lost to fire. To make matters worse, they to financial aid to rebuild after the disasters have occurred.

There have been talks about decarbonization but the global response to the climate crisis must be focused on building sustainable infrastructure that can withstand increasingly extreme weather events and ensure that the economies of these communities can grow amidst the crisis.

Developed countries must take their climate finance commitments seriously and support the climate adaptation and mitigation efforts of developing countries in the climate crisis if they hope to prevent further climate disasters.

Recall the UN-led climate negotiations which saw developed countries agreeing to an annual goal of $100 billion per year by 2020 to support the adaptation and mitigation efforts of developing countries? well, those commitments fell short. If care isn’t taken nations’ financial commitments at the COP26 will assume the same fate.

Nations need to take their financial commitments aimed at helping developing countries survive the crisis seriously. This is a matter of urgency as the needs of developing countries are on the rise.

According to estimates by UNEP, these developing communities would need about $300 billion per year by 2030 and up to $500 billion per year by 2050 to cover adaptation costs alone.

This requires targeted funding from wealthy nations to create sustainable communities in these developing and underdeveloped regions. These wealthy nations already have the mechanism for funding. It’s time for them to aggressively channel their financial resources to the places where they are most needed, especially in Africa.

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