How Will Climate Change Affect Africa?

             Climate change is a historic phenomenon that has affected life on earth for eons.  It has determined human migration and the extinction or transformation of animal species.  Unfortunately, in recent years, it has been mixed up in the minds of many with theories regarding global warming and to what extent human beings are contributing to changes in climate.  Climate scientists agree that climate change poses a danger to many vulnerable areas of the world, including in Africa, but there is disagreement on the causes and the long-term projections on how this phenomenon will be shown in weather patterns and average temperatures and on what the causes and solutions are.  Still, climate change is an undeniable fact.

If you travel to Africa, you can see dramatic evidence of the impact of climate change.  The snow pack on mountains like Kilimanjaro are noticeably diminished.  Seychelles, a country consisting of about 115 islands in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya, is believed to be under threat from rising sea levels that will put most of the archipelago underwater in 50 to 100 years, and leave the rest of it uninhabitable.

In a 2019 report on Africa’s climate, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) cited grace concerns for how a changing climate is affecting Africa.

“Climate change is having a growing impact on the African continent, hitting the most vulnerable hardest, and contributing to food insecurity, population displacement and stress on water resources. In recent months we have seen devastating floods, an invasion of desert locusts and now face the looming spectre of drought because of a La Niña event. The human and economic toll has been aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

            Given the observable effects climate change is having in Africa, further research is urgently needed to determine the current and potential future impact of climate change on Africa and how it should be addressed, but CBC News reported last October than there are major barriers facing global South scientists, such as access to prestigious (and expensive) scientific journals, the lack of time and funding to work on research and even onerous visa requirements that make it difficult for scientists to attend conferences and meetings in the global North.  As with many things in life, Africa needs to be able to determine for itself what the truth of climate change effects are and what the most reasonable and feasible solutions will be for its nations and people.

            The dangers to the continent from climate change are not just in terms of encroaching seas, melting ice packs or more rapidly growing desertification.  There are many who, in the name of curbing pollution, want to rapidly move away from the use of fossil fuels.  I’ve lived long enough to see for myself the significant reduction in pollution in my country over the past few decades, and we still use fossil fuels.  We’ve made much progress in this country, but some others, such as China and India, aren’t doing their part in the struggle to contain climate change effects.  As for Africa, countries on the continent were prevented from industrialization during the colonial period when the rest of the world was moving to machine production. 

For Africa to now catch up with the rest of the world on industrialization will either mean more pollution from new factories or more assistance in creating modern non-polluting facilities, but the latter will require significant investment.  Many promises to that end have been made but not yet delivered.  There are other gaps in development in Africa that makes rapid industrialization problematic, though no less necessary.

Putting a heavy burden for climate mitigation on African countries through a sudden abandonment of fossil fuels would negate the continent’s significant natural resource advantages.  African countries contain great reserves of petroleum, natural gas and coal.  It is true that there is great potential in Africa for advancements on solar, geothermal, wind and tidal energy production, but the technology has not reached the point that those forms of energy can quickly replace fossil fuel sources.  Thus, telling African countries they must abandon their fossil fuel advantage too quickly would be like telling a man with a pocketful of diamonds that they are now worthless and that he now must rely on the value of rubies and emeralds – even if they are not as available to him as diamonds.  African economies couldn’t make the transition as quickly as some recommend, even if they really wanted to do so, which also is true for developed economies like the United States.

There is a growing movement to rapidly replace gas-powered vehicles with electric ones.  In theory, this would be great for the environment and for fuel efficiency.  However, their purchase and fueling cost too much to be widely affordable and fueling stations are not as widely available even in developed countries as would be necessary.  The batteries require elements whose refinement are under the monopoly of China currently, and no matter where these batteries are produced, it takes fossil fuels to create them.  So, in reality the transition to electric batteries merely moves the pollution out of sight of many but doesn’t eliminate it.  On a continent that contains the necessary materials for electric car batteries and other alternative energy devices, Africa should be in a good position to benefit from the transition, but too much of its rare earth materials critical for alternative energy have been sold to China and other outside interests and are no longer under African control.  Additionally, gaps in providing electric power in Africa mean that fueling of electric vehicles – even for the relative few able to purchase them – won’t be feasible for some time to come.

One pollution mitigation tactic that has been recommended is using an agricultural product such as sugar or corn to mix with refined petroleum to create ethanol.  According to the U.S. Department of Energy, nearly all ethanol produced in the world is derived from starch- and sugar-based feedstocks. The sugars in these feedstocks are easy to extract and ferment, making large-scale ethanol production affordable. Corn is the leading U.S. crop and serves as the feedstock for most domestic ethanol production.  Brazil specializes in sugar-based ethanol production.  But at a time when the world is facing a food shortage, with rising prices for what is available, diverting larger amounts of food products to creating energy supplies will be problematic – purporting to solve one problem while creating yet another dilemma.

The Energy Department presents an alternative to food products for ethanol: cellulosic feedstocks are non-food based and include crop residues, wood residues, dedicated energy crops, and industrial and other wastes. Cellulosic feedstocks offer several advantages over starch- and sugar-based feedstocks. They are abundant and can be used to produce cellulosic biofuels. They are either waste products or purposefully grown energy crops harvested from marginal lands not suitable for other crops. Less fossil fuel energy is required to grow, collect and convert them to ethanol, and they are not used for human food.  African countries already produce non-food substances for biomass energy production and can use such sources to provide power without endangering food production.

There is great discussion around the world to reach the goal of net zero carbon production, but such a goal is not yet reachable.  As researchers cite, such a transition would have to be universal to be effective, and that means that developing countries such as those in Africa can’t be left out as they were during the age of industrialization.  According to a McKinsey & Company study, annual spending on physical assets in the energy and land-use systems through 2050 would need to be about 60 percent greater than it is today, rising by $3.5 trillion annually on average. Accounting for expected increases in spending, as incomes and populations grow, as well as for currently legislated transition policies, the required increase in spending would be lower, but still about $1 trillion, and that capital spending increase would rise from 6.8 percent of GDP today to about 9 percent of GDP between 2026 and 2030 before falling. Will African countries be fully included in such an investment and in the decisions on where such investments will be targeted?

In order not to be dealt out of this next wave of technological advances, African governments and their private sectors must do their part to participate in the planning and implementation of continent-wide plans.  As for the donors, they must decide whether broad sanctions on non-cooperating countries will be more effective than other strategies that wouldn’t interfere with what needs to be a global effort to be effective.

It is an unreasonable hope that African governments will all suddenly be able to take part in global deliberations as partners and not supplicants.  That isn’t how things have worked in the past.  However, the problem of climate change, which threatens Africa as much as anywhere in the world, must be treated differently from how things have been done previously and currently.  We will either rise together to new heights of technological advances, or we will sink together, albeit at different rates, in the melted ice and snow from around the world, as nature punishes us for our lack of foresight and cooperation. 

A collective choice lies before us.  There is time remaining, but it is gradually running out.