Climate change is already affecting many developing countries. In Africa, over 70 percent of workers rely on small-scale farming dependent on direct rainfall. Even small changes to weather patterns can threaten food security and health. These impacts present a huge challenge to the coordination of aid efforts and the design of development policies.

Many experts estimate that Africa will suffer some of the worst impacts from global warming in terms of loss of life and economic effects. The situation is made worse by existing problems, including widespread poverty, recurrent droughts and floods, disease and conflict. The second report from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, UK, a coalition of development organisations, examines what actions the environmental and development community can take.

Three main challenges exist for responding to climate change:

• stopping and reversing global warming
• adjusting to impacts that cannot be stopped
• designing development models that are ‘climate resilient’, ‘climate friendly’ and provide everyone with a fair share of natural resources.

The most urgent challenge for donors to Africa is to be flexible and not apply one approach to all situations. They must assess their policy advice and programme work to ensure that it does not inadvertently increase vulnerability to climate change,

Development groups agree that the recent emphasis on new technology, such as improved weather forecasting, distracts from more important work. This includes strengthening communities locally and improving support to small-scale local adaptations, as well as sharing knowledge among groups for disaster-response planning.

The report calls for:

• A global risk assessment of the costs of adapting to climate change in poor countries.
• Industrialised countries making resources available to poor countries for adaptation; these should not be seen as aid but as the obligation of those who created the problem.
• Policies to respond to the increasing burden of climate-related disaster relief.
• Development models based on risk reduction that incorporate community-driven coping strategies into adaptation and preparation for natural disasters.
• Disaster awareness campaigns, with materials produced by communities and available in local languages.
• Coordinated plans, from local to international levels, for relocating threatened communities, with appropriate political, legal and financial resources.
• Governments have already agreed to action focused on protecting communities in Africa from climate change, but this commitment must increase urgently. To make sure development in Africa is not reversed by climate change, the report suggests:
• Donors must provide new and additional funding, in particular for supporting small-scale agriculture.
• Rich countries must go far beyond their Kyoto targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reduce emissions by up to 80 percent.
• They must also implement other existing agreements on environment and development.
• Donors should focus on local needs and support community coping strategies that provide benefits beyond just responding to climate-driven disasters.
• Changing investment into fossil fuels to renewable and sustainable energy and removing obstacles to technology transfer.
• Donors and international institutions should release aid quickly and set targets for local and regional procurement.
• Policies and programmes should be tested before implementation to see if they are climate proof and climate friendly.

Source(s):
‘Africa – Up in Smoke? The second report from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development’, New Economics Foundation, by Andrew Simms and Hannah Reid, June 2005 Full document.

Funded by: Working Group on Climate Change and Development

id21 Research Highlight: 6 March 2006

Further Information:
Andrew Simms
New Economics Foundation
3 Jonathan Street
London, SE11 5NH
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7820 6300
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7820 6301
Contact the contributor: andrew.simms@neweconomics.org

New Economics Foundation, UK

Hannah Reid
International Institute for Environment and Development
3 Endsleigh Street
London, WC1H 0DD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7388 2117
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7388 2826
Contact the contributor: hannah.reid@iied.org

International Institute for Environment and Development, UK

Other related links:
id21 insights #53 'Securing development in the face of climate change'

'Pushing the agenda for climate change in East Africa'

'The sustainability MDG in Africa: the missing international dimension'

'Adapting to climate change: developing countries and the global response'

'Developments in adaptation: new responses to climate change'