Ahead of the crucial United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27 in Egypt, the African Development Bank and the Global Center on Adaptation have participated in a series of events at the Africa Climate Week to build consensus among African countries and stakeholders.
Described as Africa’s COP, the summit is expected to significantly shape the future of the continent and to deliver on adaptation, a transformative adaptation agenda is needed now.
Speakers at the events titled ‘Adaptation Dialogue: Implementing the Vision,’ called for strengthening collaboration on adaptation across the continent. They also highlighted the progress made by the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) so far.
Notable among these is its contribution to narrowing the adaptation gap and accelerating the implementation of the Africa Adaptation Initiative (AAI). The AAI represents Africa’s bold and innovative step to galvanize the support needed to significantly scale up adaptation across the continent.
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Speaking during the series of events, Al-Hamndou Dorsouma, acting director of the Climate Change & Green Growth Department at the African Development Bank, underscored the urgent need for accelerated adaptation action.
Dorsouma who spoke on behalf of Dr Kevin Kariuki, Vice President, Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth, called for accelerated action against climate change while making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid a mounting loss of life, biodiversity, and infrastructure.
According to him, progress on adaptation has been uneven so far, with increasing gaps between action taken and what is needed to deal with the increasing risks.
Senior Director and Africa Regional Director at the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), Prof. Anthony Nyong also highlighted the need to improve climate resilience and adaptation in Africa. He estimated the cost of climate change at $579 billion by 2030, with global finance skewed towards mitigation. Only 7.2% of global finance goes to climate adaptation.
The AAAP is an Africa-owned and Africa-led response to the continent’s expressed needs and priorities to reduce its vulnerabilities to climate change and harness the opportunities that result from climate change.
The AAAP upstream financing facility, managed by GCA, has enabled mainstreaming adaptation into investments worth over $3 billion since its launch in April 2021.
Story was adapted from AFDB.
