Global Climate Change

Climate change remains a big challenge to humanity and its impacts are vast, interlinked and pervasive. These impacts vary across regions, with developing countries bearing the heaviest brunt. Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change due to a combination of factors including:

1. Heavy dependence of livelihoods and economic activities on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources;
2. Natural fragility of its ecosystems (degradation and desertification accounts for 67 percent of Africa’s surface area);
3. Poorly developed infrastructure (especially water, energy, ICT and transport) that can hardly survive extreme weather events such as floods and drought; and
4. Weak economies, relatively lacking in financial and technological resources for climate adaptation and mitigation.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 commits the international community to take urgent action to combat climate change.  Similarly, the African Union (AU) Agenda-2063 requires African governments to act with a sense of urgency on climate change and environment. This commitment has been taken up by STISA-2024 under priorities 4 “protection of our space” and 5 “living together-build the society” and provide opportunities for enhanced application of STI.