Ready or not, climate change is coming to Africa

For a continent more or less in the middle of climate change’s destructive path — eight of the 10 most at-risk nations to climate change are located there — Africa appears almost shocking unconcerned by the threat.

There are many reasons for this, of course. It’s not so much that the continent’s decision-makers — politicos, investors, corporations, etc. — have their heads buried in the sand, but more a case of prioritizing short-term issues over long-term ones. And as much as climate activists and scientists would have you believe that climate change is a daily threat, Africa, as a developing continent, has much more pressing matters to consider: poverty, overpopulation, unemployment, heath care, education and infrastructure.

However, recent studies have shown that climate change actually impacts each of those sectors of any country or continent. Worse, Africans need to prepare for the worst in terms of climate change, with research indicating that even if harmful emissions are reduced, the continent will still be beset by rising temperatures, intense flooding, protracted droughts and withering heatwaves.

Thus, African can only hope to start insulating itself today from the terrors of tomorrow. Investments across the board, from infrastructure in the transport, trade, agriculture and service sectors to schools, hospitals and community-facing programs, must consider both short-term hurdles as well as the major long-term hurdle — climate change — that they cannot afford to avoid for much longer.

"African decision makers are overwhelmed by a large number of immediate, short-term development needs and this can eclipse longer-term concerns," said Lindsey Jones, of the London-based Overseas Development Initiative, in an interview with Thomson Reuters Foundation. "However, even some short-term interventions today, like designing healthcare systems, could have consequences far in the future.”

Luckily, there are increasingly organizations within Africa focused on helping the continent take control and exhibit some autonomy when it comes to the larger climate change debate. One new summit, the Climate South Initiative, will debut its inaugural conference on May 28-29 in Libreville, Gabon, in the hopes of reaching some of Africa’s biggest decision makers and finally, effectively transmitting the importance of taking climate change into consideration.

The summit, organized by Richard Attias & Associates, the team behind the New York Forum AFRICA (NYFA), is hoping to energize Africans ahead of the Paris climate change conference in December, but the summit can also yield a new understanding of climate change, and how vital it is for it to be considered as Africa continues to develop economically.