A senior official of the African Development Bank (AfDB) says Africa needs about $1.6 trillion between 2022 and 2030 to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The Acting Chief Economist and Vice President of the bank, Kevin Urama, said that the continent has been losing from five to 15 percent of its GDP per capita growth because of climate change.
He was speaking at a panel discussion, titled ‘African Countries Ownership in Determining Climate Agenda’, on the sidelines of the Egypt International Cooperation Forum in Cairo.
‘Collectively, African countries received only $18.3 billion in climate finance between 2016 and 2019’, Urama said.
‘The global community must meet its $100 billion commitment to help the developing countries and African economies to mitigate the impacts of the climate change and to adapt to it’, he added.
Urama highlighted that since the 1850s, countries have managed to transition away from coal, and used gas as a transition to cleaner energy.
He also affirmed that Africa had great potential in terms of green investment opportunities that private sector, including banks, could tap into.
Data from the AfDB shows that Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change despite having contributed the least to global warming and having the lowest emissions.
Climate change poses systemic risks to the continent’s economies, infrastructure investments, water and food systems, public health, agriculture, and livelihoods.
Egyptian Environment Minister, Yasmine Fouad, highlighted Egypt’s strategy for alignment for both climate mitigation and adaptation.
‘The first pillar focuses on how we can adopt a low greenhouse path, which centres on the sectors around renewable transport, gas, industry and waste’, Fouad said.
‘The second one relates to adaptation and how best to make the communities more resilient. The third and fourth ones are focused on how to protect coastal zones and have more accessibility and availability of water.
‘The last one is about the need for developing more smart and integrated concoctions and that’s the stereotype of a strategy on climate’.
Egypt is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change with respect to water security, agriculture and livestock, energy demand and supply.
The North African country has only one main source of water supply, the River Nile, which supplies over 95 percent of the water needs of the country. Data from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) shows that the Nile delta is seriously threatened by sea level rise.
Egypt pioneered the first sovereign green bond in North Africa worth U.S.$750 million, World Bank data shows. Its first impact report shows 46 percent of proceeds earmarked for clean transport and 54 percent for sustainable water supplies and wastewater management.
Also, the country, in 2021, launched a new National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS) for 2050.
Photo source: CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems
