Why Africa should be more concerned What Great Powers are largely to blame?
Chronic lack of safe drinking water, sufficient food, and shelter have remained African nations' distinct social problems caused mainly by conflicts for decades. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the aforementioned social and environmental determinants of health become the direct impacts of the increasingly damaging climate change too. Given weak and fragile states with poor infrastructure dominate the continent, the wider nations’ vulnerability to the devastating consequences of climate change is not incomprehensible. The conventional understanding of challenges raised by climate change asserts that developing countries are located mostly in Africa and are particularly vulnerable, according to a datum revealed by Iowa State University.
Africa has been suffering disproportionately from the escalating crisis of climate change. Recent reports jointly published by the African Union inform that the African nation suffers from various consequences from the global greenhouse gas emission which the continent’s contribution is only insignificant. The temperature in the continent is alarmingly accelerating causing expanded drought and flooding in recent years. The State of the Climate in Africa 2022 report states that in 2022, for example, temperature-related disasters affected over 110 million Africans with a reported 5000 death toll where the number is expected to increase if there was proper reporting. The economic damage the report mentioned in the same year tops USD 8.5 billion.
As the world’s imbalanced divide along the line of development continues generating more poor and fewer rich but the indiscriminate associated costs of climate change threaten all and particularly the continent, Africa’s resolve to proactively engage to mitigate the unbearable damages should be strong by large. Three factors underpin why Africa should be more aggressive to regard more in the years to come than producing countries.
Macroeconomic costs
Climate change has been bringing about more lasting macroeconomic costs to fragile African states than any other countries in advanced continents is one of the leading reasons. The longer the conflict a country goes through the higher its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) loss. The agricultural productivity of a particular state will be impeded by flooding simply because conflict disables the country’s mitigating capability.
Several African countries endure protracted conflicts of different levels that weaken the ability to cope with the perpetuating climate crisis. An exemplary empirical study published in 2023 that has been conducted in Burkina Faso demonstrated that flood-related failures led to significant crop losses in sub-Saharan Africa. Given no coping mechanism tailored to mitigate the continued climate shocks throughout the wider vulnerable regions Africa expects a major decline in real outputs leading to unbearable macroeconomic costs over the years to come.
Exclusive decision-making processes
Despite being victim to an unprecedented level of damage from climate change Africa as a continent plays an insignificant role in the decision-making processes led mainly by accountable major powers. At the international level, Africa is excluded from critical decision-making in the process of finding solutions for climate disasters. Global leaders of powerful countries undertake several meetings and negotiations aiming at reducing carbon emissions in the future that largely undermine what currently vulnerable regions, particularly Africa, suffer. Would reducing gas emissions elsewhere impact African nations for the better? That absolutely is true. However, an integrated decision-making process where Africa holds a central role would result both in highly industrialized continents and Africa much better and more sustainable outcomes.
Consumer Africa
The continent of Africa experiences a huge gap between what it consumes and manufactures. It is not uncommon that several states in Africa import products in line with the purchasing power. “African Specifications” have growingly been constituting public knowledge defining the idea of consumer Africa that quality-unregulated products continue dominating imports. These products are widely known to have a short period of usage and are thrown out contributing immensely to environmental pollution. The argument that claims the abundant availability of products to meet the nation’s average purchasing power should be to blame is futile. Simply because it is not the easy access to cheap products that matters most but rather regulating the transaction and post-usage conditions. In this regard, consumer Africa appears weak in devising viable policies both at national and continental levels. As the population size of the continent rises alarmingly with huge amounts of consumable products such a trend will result in uncontrollable measures of environmental damage. Africa inevitably faces a threat caused by climate change from its unmanaged consumer behavior more than the manufacturing countries.
Conclusion
Is Africa innocent of the 21st-century man-made catastrophes caused by climate change? Absolutely not! Quite contrary to several claims that come from the continent’s prominent leaders Africa is also to blame. The cliché that runs Africa is victim to consequences of climate crisis which it contributes less needs a thorough revisit. Disproportionate assertions need fair observation and a balance should be maintained. On one hand, the continent suffers from devastating impacts of carbon emissions from manufacturing powers. And again Africa remains to be a leading continent importing and consuming climate-damaging products exported by the same manufacturers. Maintaining the balance between these is vital and becoming responsibly proactive begins with looking inwardly, a key step easy to start from. Internal factors seem increasingly as severely impactful as external factors. Building internal capacity to efficiently minimize the damage climate change keeps engendering helps a lot to challenge factors Africa has been contributing insignificantly.
Reference
Macroeconomic Consequences of Climate Change in Africa & Policy Implications: https://www.bu.edu/gdp/files/2022/03/TF-WP-06-FIN.pdf
The impact of flooding on food security across Africa- https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2119399119#:~:text=These%20floods%20demonstrate%20how%20the,favorable%20for%20crops%20and%20pasture.
The effects of climate change-induced flooding on harvest failure in Burkina Faso: case study- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1166913/full
Is dirty trade concentrating in more polluting countries? Evidence from Africa: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0313592622001515
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