Africa’s Climate Perils, Collective Resilience and Ethiopia’s Far-Reaching Example

African countries rank at the bottom of the list of the world’s manufacturers. As the smallest emitter of carbon dioxide annually, the continent is thus the least polluter by far. In an increasingly overwhelming discussion surrounding climate change and the detrimental effects it is inflicting on the wider world, the cliche linked to Africa reads that the nation suffers disproportionately from what it contributes to. While immense damage to the climate has been done afar and mainly by advanced economies, the real and seemingly endless consequences continue haunting Africa. This phenomenon remains a talking point in African society, so organized for some time, helping the nation and its leaders establish a shared platform to discuss and devise strategies to address the deepening climate hazards in Africa from within. The Second Africa Climate Summit, held in Africa’s capital, Addis Ababa, from 8 to 10th of September 2025, marks a landmark gathering in the wider spectrum of global endeavors to mitigate the crisis.

Damages in Numbers Africa Suffered from Climate Change

Mere observations reveal the clear-cut effects of climate change over the past three decades. The devastating perils occurring in several vulnerable spots of Africa every year in recent decades have manifested, particularly, in chronic droughts, floods, and storms.

Reports based on consecutive data collected over the past several decades by institutes studying climate change underscore a continued and extensive damage to Africa, which the continent has done little to cause. Studies in 2024 show that Africa experienced more severe storms, droughts, and floods between 2010 and 2019 than it did in the 1970s, according to Statista’s record. The human cost of this very crisis has been the death of more than half a million Africans, the studies continued. Given the inadequate and uncoordinated efforts Africa has been putting in place to mitigate the perpetuating climate hazards, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)’s report in 2024 indicates that up to 118 million Africans will be exposed to dire drought, floods, and extreme heat by 2030.

With a special focus on the temperature rise, for instance, Africa’s contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remains as insignificant as 2 percent compared to the massive 30.01 percent emission, for example, of China, according to the 2024 report by the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR). However, Africa has been experiencing the warmest decade on record, and the continent saw a record sea surface temperature in 2024.

Severe flooding, caused by unprecedented heavy and lengthy rains, has become a recurring incident, destroying lives and livelihoods on the continent in recent years. Media outlets reported deaths in the hundreds, with over 700,000 more people affected in March to May in the East African region, particularly Kenya, Burundi, and Tanzania, in 2024. A major flood also inflicted the West and Central African region, and hundreds of thousands of citizens in Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and the Central African Republic, in particular, were displaced.

Future Scenarios Vis-à-Vis Africa

Two key scenarios are worth explaining vis-à-vis the lingering climate crisis in Africa in particular and the world in general, in brief.

One of the scenarios arguably amplifies the better future Africa could fairly secure, given the continent’s strong commitment to advancing the current commendable momentum of mitigation strategies being practiced. Africa has pursued a proven collective policy over the last few decades, in which the continental organization continues to play a coordinating role with both governmental and nongovernmental sectors. As the Africa Climate Summit (ACS2) concludes, the continental organization’s determination received unwavering support to firmly lead the solution to the climate crisis with multi-billion-dollar financial commitments.     

On the other hand, nonetheless, the enduring climate crisis the wider world has continued to suffer from remains a substantive threat to the continent’s resilience. This formation presents Africa a steep uphill journey, making the future scenario undeniably frustrating given that the other part of the world that emits the lion’s share of GHG continues more and more less concerned.

The USA, under the Trump administration, over the last few years, adopted a climate change denial policy that greatly hampered a global effort to mitigate the climate crisis. Africa’s vulnerability and level of impact of the climate crisis soars when the world’s largest historical emitter quits collective accountability. Absent the U.S. climate leadership, a sentiment that ignores the international climate ramifications, the planet looks to continue to live the pessimistic scenario, and Africa’s limited local endeavors to contain climate change damages will sustain significant complications.      

A Prospect to the Climate Crisis: Ethiopia’s Green Legacy

During the Africa Climate Summit-2 (ACS2), the host Ethiopia unveiled a decade-long initiative from 2025 to 2035 referred to as the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0). At the end of the stated period, Addis Ababa, Africa’s capital, aims to achieve a conditional 70.3 percent reduction in GHG emissions, which seems hard to attain. Unlike several pledges that go up in smoke, this pledge, however, could be materialized if the world gives due attention to Ethiopia’s remarkable ambitions and commitments to climate action over the last half a dozen-plus years since 2018. Ethiopia’s green legacy is a case in point and, most importantly, a real thing to believe in and help build climate resilience.

First, the underscoring achievement that Ethiopia has increasingly been succeeding under the remarkable green legacy initiative (GLI) is a massive step in the global effort to mitigate the climate crisis. Numbers assert this.

Scientific research that focused on the green legacy in Ethiopia, published in 2023, concluded that "tree planting, growing trees for carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, soil conservation, community engagement, and climate education have positive statistically significant effect on healthy environment in Ethiopia.’’ Records indicate that more than 32 billion forest, agro-forest, and ornamental seedlings have been planted since the launch of the green legacy initiative in Ethiopia, according to the GLI portal. Such an enormous undertaking, the Eastern Africa’s most populous country, has proven to be committed to will excel, and inevitably leads the nation to succeed in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. As such, the Ethiopian government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, demonstrated a proactive willingness to collaborate with governments and nongovernmental organizations, share the globally prominent successful GLI, and expand similar climate-resilient projects.

Second, the initiative holds a significant ground within the framework of African solutions to African problems. This reveals two equally important sentiments. On one hand, Africans should strengthen their belief in themselves that the idea of Pan-Africanism flourishes, and embrace a viable solution that one of its leaders generated could help address a common problem at the continental level. The exemplary GLI program in Ethiopia showed that its fruits could be integrated into the national policies of African nations and put into rigorous implementations. And, also Africans should bring their hands together to think collectively and be encouraged to find more solutions that utilize local resources and decrease unnecessary dependence on external and scarce resources.

Africa needs to level up public awareness and mobilize further its continental capabilities to bring about significant change in mitigating the climate crisis. The African solution to African problems motto serves an important ambition of addressing a problem of this kind without looking abroad and externalizing the issue.

References

Climate change in Africa - statistics and facts: https://www.statista.com/topics/9715/climate-change-in-africa/#topicOverview

State of the Climate in Africa 2023: https://wmo.int/publication-series/state-of-climate-africa-2023

EDGAR - Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research GHG emissions of all world countries 2024 report: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2024

 Climate change has doubled the world’s heatwaves: how Africa is affected: https://theconversation.com/climate-change-has-doubled-the-worlds-heatwaves-how-africa-is-affected-258594

Climate Change and the Escalation of Global Extreme Heat: Assessing and Addressing the Risks (2025): Climate Change and the Escalation of Global Extreme Heat | Climate Central

Africa can’t wait for ambitious climate action – here’s what its leaders can do now: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/02/africa-ambitious-climate-action-leaders-action-now/

Analysis: Which countries are historically responsible for climate change?: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/

Annual Tree Targets and Planted: https://ethio-greenlegacy.et/ 

Green Legacy Initiative: https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/green-legacy-initiative

The Impact of Green Legacy on Climate Change in Ethiopia: https://ojs.bonviewpress.com/index.php/GLCE/article/view/1372