Islamabad, Sep 5: The UN climate chief said on Thursday that the effects of global warming are costing African countries up to 5% of their economic production and that more funding is needed to help them adapt to the changing environment.
Merely 1% of yearly global climate money is allocated to the 54-nation continent, which has endured the burden of climate change despite emitting significantly fewer pollutants than the industrialized world. At a meeting of African environment ministers in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said, “The climate crisis is an economic sinkhole, sucking the momentum out of economic growth.” At the pre-COP29, or Conference of the Parties, African states and their climate negotiators are debating a number of different approaches, preliminary conference in the nation of West Africa.
African government leaders claim that even while the continent has drawn new investors in climate mitigation and adaptation projects recently, it only receives a relatively small percentage of the $100 billion in investment that is available globally.The authorities claim that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the $1.3 trillion needed, but they don’t indicate when exactly that amount would be needed.
“Africa’s vast potential to drive forward climate solutions is being thwarted by an epidemic of underinvestment,” Stiell added. According to Stiell, $4 billion in annual investments are needed to end the continent’s usage of wood, or other traditional fuels, for cooking, as this practice adds to greenhouse gas emissions.
“Of the more than $400 billion spent on clean energy last year, only $2.6 billion went to African nations,” he stated. Prolonged droughts and devastating floods in Africa have been attributed to climate change. These events have impacted food production, increased commodity prices, and exacerbated hunger.
In the lead-up to COP29 in Baku, where countries will be seeking to reach an agreement on new international climate finance targets, Stiell said there have been increasing requests for Africa to receive additional climate financing.
A climate finance conference last week, Hanan Morsy, chief economist of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), stated: “We must use innovative financing solutions for adaptation without exacerbating debt burdens.” She mentioned carbon markets and debt swaps and refinancing as examples of these developments.
