Climate change has assumed a very large presence in the global debate in recent times. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has had an enormous influence over world thinking on climate change. In its latest publication (AR5), the IPCC notes that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions growth in the decade leading to 2010 has been larger, averaging an increase of 2.2% per year, than in the previous three decades from 1970 to 2000, where annual increase was at 1.3%.

With these emissions, temperatures have continued to rise, with each of the past three decades being successively warmer than the preceding decades since 1850. Impacts on physical systems, such as coastal erosion, melting glaciers, receding rivers and lakes, and increased drought incidences, have been accompanied by changes in extreme events; for instance, the increasing reported frequency of heat waves in large parts of Europe, Asia, and Australia, or a 0.50°C increase in near‐surface temperatures over most of Africa and a reduction in precipitation.

While Africa's emissions are negligible relative to major emitters, the IPCC AR4 observes that the continent stands out as one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change. The far‐ranging impacts articulated by the IPCC AR5 include socioeconomic impacts where climate change has been reported to inhibit the enjoyment of human rights in Africa, as well as adversely affecting progress toward attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as it not only increases the pressure on economic activities, such as agriculture (the main economic activity in terms of employment), which is 98% rain‐fed (hence vulnerable to climate change) and which has experienced stagnant yields in light of the region's rapid population growth (especially youth population), and fishing, but also adversely affects urban areas located in coastal zones.

On food security, the Africa Adaptation Gap Report reiterates a bleak future. Its data on the effect of climate change on crop yields for key staples in Africa point to mean yield changes by the 2050s of −17% for wheat, −5% for maize, −15% for sorghum, and −10% for millet.