The continent of Africa stands to suffer the most from climate change whilst having contributed the least to the problem. The region is already experiencing significant impacts from climate change including increasing desertification. There is great concern that many of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa are already in a precarious position in terms of food production and agriculture and that climate change is likely to have a far greater human impact here than in more temperate regions.


Many of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa have relatively undeveloped economies and very low emissions of carbon dioxide so the priority for the region is 'adaptation' – developing practical responses to climate change that will reduce the impact on people living in the affected areas. The effects of climate change are already expected to slow, and potentially even reverse, progress towards the achievement of the development targets known as the Millennium Development Goals and so implementing practical measures to support future development is vital.

Core to the adaptation debate is the question of international financing. Poorer countries that stand to be early victims of climate change – a problem that they did not cause – are rightly demanding financial assistance from richer countries that share much greater responsibility for climate change. The discussions about how to manage financial support – the amounts required, the governance arrangements that need to be in place and other questions – are ongoing but will need to be successfully resolved as part of a comprehensive international agreement to tackle climate change.

Not all African countries have low carbon emissions. South Africa is the industrial giant of the region and has very high emissions if measured per capita – comparable to Europe. The explanation for this situation lies in the industrial base of the country which is heavily focussed on natural resource extraction and consumes large amounts of coal. South Africa is developing a huge renewal and development programme for its power sector and although new coal-fired power stations feature heavily there is great interest in developing ‘carbon capture and storage’ (CCS) technologies for capturing emissions.