Climate change is happening, and it is affecting livelihoods that depend on the natural environment. In Africa, this means nearly everyone.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is unequivocal: climate change will have the biggest impact on the communities least able to respond to it.
"The impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries, thereby exacerbating inequities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water and other resources." Poor communities in Africa are the least responsible for damage to the climate, but likely to be the most vulnerable.
Yet, far from being passive victims, across Africa people are recognising the reality of climate change, and are taking steps to respond to them even without adequate support.
Without urgent action on climate change Tony Blair's efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa will ultimately fail. So far G8 nations have failed to 'join-the-dots' between climate change and Africa. Unless addressed, this could condemn generations in the world's poorest nations. The G8 summit can choose to act now, or see human development gains go up in smoke.
Food, farming and the environment
Small-scale farming provides most of the food produced in Africa, as well as employment for 70 percent of working people. Since farming is overwhelmingly dependent on direct rainfall, Africa is exceptionally vulnerable to the uncertainties and weather extremes of global warming.
The continent is already persistently affected by drought. Local droughts occur every year and continental crises seem to occur at least once a decade. Although the continent uses only around four percent of its renewable freshwater resources, "water is becoming one of the most critical natural resource issues."
Poor Africans, especially those living in marginal environments and in areas with low agricultural productivity, depend directly on genetic, species and ecosystem diversity to support their way of life. As a result of this dependency, any impact that climate change has on natural systems will threaten the livelihoods, food intake and health of the population.
Africa's coastal areas already experience the environmental problems of coastal erosion, flooding, and subsidence. Exploitation of coastal resources, development and population pressures all contribute. Climate change is expected to intensify these problems. The IPCC predicts that "Climate change will exacerbate existing physical, ecological/biological, and socio-economic stresses on the African coastal zone."
The continent is more exposed to the impacts of climate change than many other regions in the world. Its high sensitivity to climate is exacerbated numerous factors; widespread poverty; recurrent droughts and floods; an immediate daily dependence on natural resources and biodiversity; a heavy disease burden; and all too frequent outbreaks of conflict. Matters are further complicated by an unjust international trade system and the burden of unpayable debt.
Development and climate change
Development groups broadly agree that the most urgent challenge is to strengthen communities from the bottom-up, by building on their own coping strategies to live with global warming. The field experience of development groups identifies a need to give much more support to small-scale farmers, along with priority access to energy from sustainable sources.
Increasingly frequent and severe droughts, floods, and storms have led to either less cash being available from crop sales, or simply the need for more labour to replant or repair damaged crops or farm infrastructure. One of the recognised positive outcomes from this shift is an increased sense of solidarity with neighbours.
Case Study: Mozambique
The village of Nwadjahane in Gaza Province in southern Mozambique was established in the 1980s following displacement from surrounding areas during the civil war. Over the years, villagers have had to live with political and economic instability, drought, and major flood and storm damage. Despite these difficult circumstances, they have developed creative and innovative ways of coping and adapting to this uncertainty and change.
Social networks are the links and connections that individuals and households have with family, neighbours and friends. Within Nwadjahane, these have evolved and changed over the last 20 years. One fundamental shift is from paying people with cash in exchange for help with tasks on the farm, to 'traditional' forms of non-cash bartering, such as exchanging labour. Villagers explain that bartering is thriving because there is less cash within the local economy (linked a decline in the value of cash crops, which Africa has been encouraged to produce for western consumption in recent decades) and the perceived increase in the number of weather-related disturbances.
Energy in Africa
Africa has enormous potential for renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies, with abundant reserves of biomas, geothermal and hydropower. On the other hand, the vast majority of Africans have no access to clean, modern energy. There is a huge demand for sustainable energy, especially in the poorer communities. These resources and technologies, however, remain largely unexploited due to financial, capacity, market and political barriers.
The challenge is how to create access to clean, affordable energy sources. Clean energy options can offer employment and economic development opportunities which will meet real development needs, liberating Africa from dependence on ball-and-chain of oil-dependency and other forms of 'dirty' energy.
The very least that the G8 should do is to work with Africa to ensure that technology transfer and development approaches are better co-ordinated, and that voluntary commitments already made are implemented. Currently these programs lack credibility, and rarely deliver meaningful results. Worse still, fossil fuel industries in Africa are synonymous with exploitation, pollution and bad development practice.
African people want greater access to energy. Though the continent has abundant natural resources, these are often either under-used, badly exploited or exported to richer countries. Africa needs the means to develop local solutions: local resources should meet local needs, and health and education services, households and enterprise be supported by increased access to clean, sustainable energy.
A climate for change?
Climate change is happening and when all the impacts are added up, everyone will lose out sooner or later. Some people will adapt more successfully than others, and climate change may well result in a polarisation of wealth and well-being in ways we have not seen before.
The UK government has failed to understand the full extent of the problem and failed to meet commitments to crucial funds that have already been established to help the poorest countries deal with climate change.
Recent reports that carry the government's stamp of approval are blighted with the same fatal blind spot as the G8 agenda: they fail to recognise the scale of the threat. If a global solution that is fair and rooted in human equality is to be found, the G8 and the international community need to urgently:
Cut rich countries' greenhouse gas emissions:
the developed world must go far beyond their Kyoto Protocol targets for reducing greenhouse gases. Emissions must be cut to a level commensurate with halting global warming - and any temperature rise kept well below 2C above pre-industrial levels. All G8 countries should commit to achieving national caps on emissions if a fair global solution that is rooted in human equality is to be found.Help Africa leapfrog 'dirty development':
the exploitation of fossil fuels in Africa does little for the development or security of its people. But the potential for sustainable and renewable energy on the continent is enormous, and the market, especially in poor communities, is huge.- Increased support for small-scale agriculture: dramatically increased support for small-scale agriculture, and an approach to farming based on maximum appropriate diversification. Highly diverse systems, as opposed to commercial monocultures, have been shown time and again to be more resilient - and more productive.
Focus on local needs first:
Africa needs to be freed from a one-size fits all development approach. Effective responses to climate change will differ everywhere depending on local circumstances, so a new flexibility is needed. The greatest challenge is securing livelihoods at the local level.Support community coping strategies:
global warming presents a huge challenge to the coherence and coordination of aid. Coalition members' experience indicates that promoting disaster reduction at the local level by supporting community coping strategies is far more effective and has immediate benefits that stretch beyond just tackling climate driven disasters.Release aid quickly and set targets for local and regional procurement:
more efficient systems are needed to ensure that aid is released quickly and is well targeted when disasters strike. To ensure that there are long-term development benefits of money spent on disasters, targets for local and regional procurement should be set for governments and agencies. This would help prevent the leakage of relief money from affected communities.Implement existing agreements on environment and development:
specifically, the international community should implement the agreement made at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to help Africa prepare for, and mitigate, disasters at both a community and national level.Map likely health impacts:
the impacts of global warming on health are complex. The challenge to the international community is first to help map them, and then to ensure that the resources are made available to tackle them, and that the development policy framework does not make things worse. For example, as climate change puts stress on scarce water resources, a dogmatic approach to water privatisation could easily increase the vulnerability of millions of people in Africa.Initiatives must be made climate proof and climate friendly:
all policies and programmes should be tested against one key criterion - whether they will leave people in Africa more or less vulnerable to the effects of global warming. At the very least, in line with the recommendation of the Commission for Africa, climate change should be 'mainstreamed' by 2008.New and additional funding:
all funding to help Africa adapt to global warming should be new and additional to existing funds, and seen not as aid but as an obligation of the rich countries who created the problem.
The article is a summary of key point from the report Africa - Up in smoke? presented by the Working Group on Climate Change and Development which includes Greenpeace, ActionAid, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, WWF, WaterAid, People and Planet, CAFOD, RSPB TearFund among others.
