Africa is exposed to complex, interconnected climate systems, with three of the most important being El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the monsoons, and cyclones. Each is already affecting the lives and livelihoods of people across the continent. As anthropogenic climate change causes the planet to warm, each of these climate systems is likely to increase their influence on extreme weather outcomes and to become more erratic.

The recently released first volume of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report suggests that it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid reaching a rise in average global temperature of 1.5oC within the next decade or so and 2oC or more by mid-century. Even if lower emissions pathways are to be achieved, African climates are likely to be more erratic, with most of Africa becoming more arid and much of it so hot that outdoor work and tourism will be life-threatening for much of the year.
Key Findings

The African continent is often associated with disasters. Like most other parts of the world, Africa has shown a marked decline in the number of people reported as being killed in disasters. For example, in the 20 years from 1970 to 1989, 679,000 people were reported as being killed in African climate disasters, compared with only 44,000 fatalities over the most recent 20-year period. Most of this change represents real improvements from better hazard-reduction measures, social safety nets and humanitarian support to alleviate the worst of the impacts. But some of the decline is due to changes in the attribution of the cause of death, especially in relation to drought.

From 1991 to 2020 there were about 50 reported disasters per year across Africa, with floods contributing two out of three events. But droughts have the greatest impact on African lives and livelihoods, with five times more people affected by droughts than floods. Floods are recorded as causing greater financial damage, but as only 14 percent of disasters in Africa have an estimate of damages recorded, little can be made of the damage data. The number of flood events reported has increased about five-fold since the mid-1990s while the numbers of other types of disaster have changed much less. Some of the increase in floods could be due to a changing climate, but changing exposure patterns of populations along rivers and coasts and improved reporting almost certainly contribute as well.

In August 2021 the first volume of the AR6 Report was released with new insights and modelling. It is based on a major new modelling effort (CMIP6) that compares over 30 models of general circulation to include more detail within the models and greater spatial resolution. Analysis for Africa shows that changes in temperature drivers are already observed to be consistently higher across Africa. Annual precipitation is expected to decrease in North Africa and Southern Africa by 2050, even though such a trend is not yet clear in the observational data. Northern and Southern Africa are expected to become more arid throughout this century, but in some parts of Southern Africa aridity will be accompanied by an increase in heavy rainfall events, possibly leading to floods.

Confidence in the prediction of changed climate patterns and their attribution to human effects has increased, and it now appears that critical warming levels are likely to be reached earlier in the century than previously projected. This is the AR6 Report’s strongest message for adaptation. Both the need and the urgency to adapt are stronger than ever.

A major challenge in the planning for climate change is the deep uncertainty at small geographical scales (like a city) and over longer timeframes (the decades of useful life of infrastructure assets). This calls for a strong emphasis on no-regret robust solutions able to handle that uncertainty.

Climate change attracts attention when some form of climate shock occurs. However, more subtle climate changes also threaten ecosystems and the people whose well-being depends on them. Small changes in weather patterns arising from climate change can gradually erode productivity of food systems and cause losses of assets through events too small to attract global or even national attention. These affect people’s well-being and can counter efforts to rise out of, or can push people back into, poverty, leading to millions of people never being able to escape from the threat of poverty. Table 1 summarizes the AR6 climate trend observations and projections for Africa.

Effective action on climate adaptation and resilience is only possible with high-quality weather, climate, hydrological, and related environmental data (“hydromet” data). This data is collected in each country by national hydromet agencies. Data is, of course, not enough. In the end, what is required is for all stakeholders in society—governments, businesses, civil society, and citizens—to take appropriate action based on weather and climate information and projections. The meteorological value chain—from weather observations to local forecasts, warnings, seasonal outlooks, and other climate services—needs to work in a coordinated manner to be truly effective.

An essential product of this meteorological chain is multi-hazard early warning systems. According to an estimate by the World Bank, if early warning systems in low- and middle-income countries were upgraded to European standards, lives lost could be halved and annual losses to assets of between $300 million and $2 billion avoided. High-quality hydromet data has many other benefits, including economic productivity in key sectors, from agriculture to logistics. Better historical hydromet data and projected climate changes are becoming more critical to mobilizing climate finance. The collection of weather and climate observations in Africa is weak and deteriorating in recent years. For example, over the last five years (January 2015 to January 2020), the number of upper-air observations dropped by almost half in Africa. This foundational problem poses significant challenges for the ability of Africa to adapt to climate change.