The Climate Crossroads

Africa is at a crossroads. How the continent chooses – and is supported in efforts – to address the impacts of climate change will decide if its millions of smallholder farmers are able to progress. By extension, this will determine whether the region’s economies can flourish as well. Africa’s financing gap for climate adaptation and mitigation urgently needs to be addressed.

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September, has set the course for the next fifteen years of development, as will the upcoming United Nation climate change negotiations – or COP 21 – in Paris in December. Major investment in climate adaptation and mitigation is required for Africa’s farmers to be able to overcome the challenges that climate change will throw their way.

Between 2010 and 2050, the costs for adaptation to climate change in Africa could cost up to 50 billion dollars each year, yet the levels of financing actually reaching African countries is nowhere near the amount required. Only 2.3 billion dollars was disbursed between 2003 and 2013 through various climate funds – despite almost 15 times that amount having been pledged.

This is shortsighted. We know that for every one dollar spent preparing for disasters, seven dollars is saved in the cost of post-disaster recovery efforts.

The African continent will be disproportionately affected by the gap in climate funding. Mean temperatures in Africa are expected to rise more quickly than the global average.

Food prices are expected to rise, and agricultural losses could consume up to seven per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the turn of the next century. Tens of millions of people will be displaced due to the sudden onset of climate related disasters.

African farmers are among the most under-prepared to cope with such climate stresses and shocks. Food insecurity, malnutrition, poverty and conflict keep them from building the resilience required to overcome these new, unpredictable and complex challenges.

According to some projections, extreme poverty could be largely eliminated from every region around the world by 2030, except sub-Saharan Africa. To think of “poverty” becoming synonymous with “Africa” is outdated, and it is completely avoidable.

A new report by the Montpellier Panel of experts in agriculture and development, outlines a series of recommendations for donor and government action to change course and prevent a climate catastrophe.

Many tools and technologies are already out there to help farmers adapt to climate change. More knowledge is needed in order to make them appropriate for Africa’s farmers. Investing in better weather monitoring is going to be key, as is research to understand the responses of different crops and livestock breeds to drought, floods and heat stress.

Helping Africa’s farmers to adapt to harsher conditions will enable agribusinesses to grow. It will also help meet the demand for affordable food in the region which will increase as the population soars in coming decades.

Climate change currently stands in the way of a strong urban and regional food market within Africa. The right adaptation techniques could catalyse one, and generate a lot of wealth for agribusiness entrepreneurs.

Smallholder farmers can also drive sustainable agricultural development that builds resilience and reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Sequestering carboninto the soil, which recaptures excess carbon in the atmosphere, is known to have a lot of potential. Better land management could capture around three gigatonnes of carbon per year.

Collectively this has the potential to offset between five per cent and 15pc of global greenhouse gas emissions. It could also increase annual grain production in developing countries by 24 million tonnes to 32 million tonnes, leading to improved food security for many farmers and their families.

However, farmers need to be provided with the right incentives to take on these actions. This includes paying them to protect their environments and giving them secure land rights to inspire better protection and care of their own fields.

In Niger, for instance, government policies that strengthen local farmer rights for planting trees, coupled with training from aid agencies to improve land management and agro-forestry, resulted in the revitalisation of more than five million hectares. Today, smallholders in Niger benefit from enriched soils and increased crop yields.

These efforts must be supported through adequate and correctly t a r g e ted climate finance mechanisms so that African governments can better access funding that significantly benefits smallholders. Currently, funding is fragmented and insufficient.

With the United Nations climate talks fast approaching, donor governments must prioritise action on climate change. If they fail to do so, hard won gains in ending hunger and poverty in regions like sub-Saharan Africa will become irrelevant.

 

 


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