African leaders on Monday urged leaders from richer, polluting nations to increase funding for projects to help their countries adapt to global warming, reported The Reuters.
“If we want our continent to thrive, we have to adapt to climate change – and to achieve this, adaptation financing needs to start flowing at scale,” Ghana President Nana Afuko-Addo said during the Africa Adaptation Summit in Rotterdam.
African countries are seeking to raise $25 billion of investments in the next three years for adaptation projects that includes updating infrastructure and improving agricultural resilience.
The African Development Bank said it had already committed half the amount needed for the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme. However, they were seeking for more funding from the world’s big pollution generating countries.
African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina said African countries does not contribute more than 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but they suffer disproportionately from its negative consequences.
Britain, France, Denmark and Norway announced $55 million in new contributions on Monday. Heads of state from Senegal, Ghana, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia attended the conference alongside Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte who was the only European leader to attend in person.
Senegalese President, Macky Sall, said he was disappointed by how few of their leaders had turned up for the event.
“I cannot help but note with some bitterness the absence of leaders from the industrial world,” Sall, who is also chairperson of the African Union, said. “I think if we made the effort to leave Africa to come to Rotterdam, it would be easier for the Europeans and others to be here because they are the main polluters”.
Last year, World powers meeting in Glasgow pledged to double the funding for such adaptation projects for developing countries to around $40 billion a year by 2025.
The global leaders are expected to meet again in two months’ time in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for the UN climate summit COP27 – dubbed “the African COP” – with climate finance a major focus.
