Africa loses up to 15% of GDP per capita due to climate change: AfDB

CAIRO - 31 July 2022: Africa has been losing 5 percent to 15 percent of GDP per capita due to climate change, according to the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Acting Chief Economist and Vice President Kevin Urama.

 

Urama referred to difficulties which the black continent encounters such as opportunities for innovation.

 

This came during an event to discuss the AfDB’s African Economic Outlook 2022 hosted by the Atlantic Council, with shedding light on the highest priority attention that Africa deserves to attract during the United Nations climate conference, COP 27 to be held in November 2022. 

 

The 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the UNFCCC will be held from 6 to 18 November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

 

"As we prepare for COP 27, honoring the 2009 $100 billion yearly climate finance commitment that high-income countries promised to developing countries will help to restore confidence that we are serious about climate change, even though it is not enough,” Urama stated.

 

A team from the African Development Bank Group, led by Urama, is in Washington D.C. to present the African Economic Outlook 2022, a flagship publication of the Bank, to international thought leaders and other targeted bodies. 

 

The AfDB’s report came under the theme, “Supporting Climate Resilience and a Just Energy Transition in Africa.” This year’s report highlights climate change as a growing threat to lives and livelihoods in Africa. 

 

In a presentation on the report, Acting Chief Economist Urama called for policy coordination and a more holistic approach to tackling climate change.

 

In a video message during one of the sessions, president and Chief Executive Officer of  Bezos Earth Fund, Andrew Steer, urged African and world leaders to think bolder and work more creatively together as they prepare for COP 27, which will take place in Egypt.

 

Steer, a former World Bank Special Envoy for Climate Change believes that COP 27 gives the world an incredible opportunity to think big about Africa. “We need to make it Africa’s COP. So, what the African Development Bank and the Atlantic Council are trying to do to raise awareness is exceedingly important.”

 

He described the 2022 African Economic Outlook as ‘an excellent report.’ “It lays out beautifully this sobering time for Africa in particular, but actually for the whole world - a slowing world economy, the perfect storm of rising food prices and  energy prices,  interest rates, and shocking increases in the impact of climate change and green vulnerability at a time that international resources are not what they need to be.”

 

As for Egypt, which will be hosting the COP27, the AfDB’s report raised its expectations for the real growth domestic product (GDP) to reach 5.7 percent in 20200, compared to the anticipated 4.7 percent in 2021. It also lowered the GDP expectations for 2023 to hit 5.1 percent.