Africa and Climate Change

Africa epitomizes many facets of Global Climate Change. Here, causes, impacts, mitigation opportunities, adaptive needs,questions of equity, and the strong links to development stand out with particular clarity. Africa´s ecosystems and populations are the most vulnerable to the consequences of Climate Change making it the continent with the highest priority for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Africa contains 14% to the global population, and contributes roughly that proportion to global soil and biomass carbon stocks. By contrast, the continent emits only 3% of global fossil fuel carbon, and 5.3% of the global greenhouse gases from all non-land use sectors.

Since 1990, Southern Africa witnessed the highest rate of deforestation in the whole of Africa contributing 31% to African deforestation area. Main drivers are the expansion of agriculture, shifting cultivation and unregulated logging with poverty, strong population growth, energy demand, and poor institutional capacities as underlying causes. Thus, biomass carbon losses from deforestation in SADC countries amount to 54% of those from the entire continent. Carbon emissions from combined deforestation and degradation are over five times larger than those from all other sources making sustainable management and conservation of SADC forests as well as fire management particularly urgent mitigation measures.

In May 2009, the SADC Member States decided to develop a regional REDD Programme that addresses the common problems of deforestation and degradation in the region and formulates joint Climate Change mitigation measures in the forest sector. The content of this programme was developed participatorily with all SADC Member States emphasizing topics that promote regional integration and create synergies through the co-operation among Member States. The programme document was approved by the SADC Ministers responsible for Environment and Natural Resources Management in May 2011. For further information, visit the news.