The
continent was hit by 80 extreme weather and climate hazards last
year, said the report sent by the World Meteorological
Organization to coincide with Africa's first climate summit in
Kenya where financing is set to be in focus.
These disasters, such as the Horn of Africa's worst drought in
40 years and Algerian wildfires, resulted in 5,000 deaths and
over $8.5 billion in economic damage, the report showed, citing
an emergencies database. The real figures are likely to be
higher due to reporting gaps, it said.
"Africa is responsible for only a fraction of global greenhouse
gas emissions but is suffering disproportionately from climate
change," the State of the Climate in Africa 2022 report said.
"Climate change and the diminishing natural resource base could
fuel conflicts for scarce productive land, water, and pastures,
where farmer-herder violence has increased over the past 10
years due to growing land pressure...," it added.
Already, communal violence over resources flares up frequently
in parts of the semi-arid Sahel. On average, each African
produced 1.04 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2021, less
than a quarter of the global average.
The report said the average rate of warming in Africa was 0.3
degrees Celsius per decade in the 1991-2022 period, compared
with 0.2 degrees in the world as a whole.
The warming has been fastest in North Africa which has been
subject to multiple heatwaves since last year. That contributed
to a fall in cereal production to 33 million tonnes or about 10%
below the previous five-year average, the report said, although
production in some other parts of the continent such as West
Africa rose amid good rains.
Overall, the report said that agricultural productivity had
fallen due to climate change, noting a decline of 34% since 1961
which is set to drive up import needs sharply.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Peter Graff)
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