THE CLIMATE CRISIS AND CHILDREN IN AFRICA PART 1.

 

Background

The climate emergency that our world faces has had numerous superlatives applied to it. Among other things, it has been called “the biggest crises of our time”1,2 and our “existential threat”.3 It has been said to be “changing the world for children in unprecedented ways”.4 Some countries have declared a full climate emergency.

 

Countries such as Chad, Somalia and South Sudan have declared food emergencies as a result of prolonged dry spells exacerbated by climate change. As of 31 January 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the drought in the Greater Horn of Africa, which comprises seven countries (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda), as a Grade 3 health emergency the WHO’s highest such ranking.

 

5 Zimbabwe and Mozambique were among the three countries most affected by extreme weather in 2019.6 It should be noted that, despite Africa’s under-reported extreme weather events in global-north media7, the continent generally experiences some of the worst effects of climate change, ranging from heat waves to floods. Cyclone Freddy, one of the deadliest storms on record for Africa, struck Malawi and Mozambique in 2023, leaving many dead or missing and causing a huge humanitarian crisis.

 

8It is thus increasingly difficult to ignore the relevance of climate change to numerous areas of public law and policy in Africa. Climate change affects human rights, including the right to life, the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to education, and the right to access remedies for violations. It also causes conflict, mass migration and internal displacement.9 As such, climate change poses a significant threat to the protection and realization of human rights.

 

Africa’s children have not been spared. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported that 35 of the 45 countries identified globally in the Children’s Climate Risk Index as those worst affected by climate change are in sub-Saharan Africa.10 About 490 million children under the age of 18 who live in these 35 African countries are at the highest risk of suffering the impact of climate change.11 Despite the impact of climate change on African children, there has been minimal discussion about the responsibilities of governments, the private sector and other stakeholders towards them.

 

This report seeks to situate the rights of the African child within the climate change discourse and to examine climate change as a threat to progress in realizing children’s rights in Africa – a threat that should trigger urgent legislative and policy measures and action. The report addresses questions such as these: What is the impact of climate change on Africa’s children? What is the progress made so far in terms of addressing the rights of children in the context of climate change?

 

What should be the roles of law and policy, as well as the courts, the business sector, civil society organizations and children themselves when it comes to responding to the climate crisis on the continent? The report focuses both on the impact of climate change on the rights of the child in Africa, and on accountability for it. The impacts of climate change on the rights of children are manifold and affect not only their civil and political rights but also their social, economic and cultural rights.

 

While some of the impacts are immediate (‘sudden onset’), others are not (‘slow onset’), as such, this report looks at accountability not only after a violation of the rights of the child happen, but also before it happens, by examining efforts to prevent violations in the context of climate change.

 

Climate change in Africa:

An overview Already the severe impacts of climate change in Africa are in full display across the continent and its islands. Africa is one of the region’s most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.13 The continent is the most affected of all the world’s regions by droughts and the

second most affected by floods.14 Conversations about climate change are not so much about the future as they are about the present.

 

The data tell a chilling story. Africa accounts for 4 per cent of the world’s energy-related CO2 emissions.15 Half of global emissions are produced by the richest 10 per cent of countries in the world, whereas the poorer half, a good portion of whom are in Africa, generates only 10 per cent of emissions.16 South Africa (14th), Nigeria (17th) and Zambia (19th) are the only African countries that are on the list of the 20 States that produce three-quarters of global emissions.

 

17 The projections are also dire. By 2050, 78 million more people, over half of them in Africa, will face chronic hunger.18 By 2050, the gross domestic product (GDP) of sub-Saharan Africa could be reduced by up to 3 per cent as a result of climate change.19 And 40 million more people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030, while by the same year, crop yields across the continent are projected to decrease.

 

20 The African Union (AU) Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan (2022–2032) further provides a grim assessment of the impact of climate change in Africa. It indicates that the continent’s temperatures are increasing faster than the global average, and 215 million of its people will be affected by floods.

 

The ten most vulnerable countries globally are also in Africa; and in eight of those countries, 60 per cent of the working population are employed in the agricultural sector. Besides, two thirds of the continent’s climate-vulnerable population lives in poverty. The Strategy further acknowledges that the continent’s development and economic growth are driven by climate-sensitive sectors, most notably agriculture.

 

For instance, climate-sensitive sectors such as tourism and hospitality, real estate, banking and transport, energy, industry and agriculture, as well as the blue economy, were the driving force behind the continent’s economic growth between 2002 and 2018, at 3.37 per cent.

21 Overall, African countries are taking climate action. This is despite low emissions and the fact that almost two thirds of African countries (43 countries) have already achieved Goal 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals, on climate action (and no North American or European Union countries – [except Moldova] – are projected to achieve this by 2030).

 

22 For example,

no fewer than 12 African countries have committed to reach net zero by around 2050.23 What deserves the most attention is Africa’s changing demography, shaped by its increasing child population. There is, arguably, no other continent in the world where children are more central to the present and the future. According to a 2017 UNICEF report – Generation 2030: Africa 2.0 – children account for 47 per cent of Africa’s population.

 

24 Population projections also show that by 2050 the continent will account for 42% of all births globally and almost 40% of all children in the world.25 While this demographic change is expected to bring immense opportunities to the continent, it may also present several challenges unless countries are able to effectively harness this dividend.

 

This ACPF’s report does not assume that all five regions of the continent face the same challenges. The climate change and child-rights challenges faced in the Sahel are not always the same as those facing Southern Africa and the great lakes; but in all sub-regions, the people proudly possess traditional knowledge that must be drawn upon when ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change are sought.

 

Finally, on the matter of responsibility and accountability, it is widely known that non-state actors, particularly those in the business sector, contribute to climate change. They too must be included in seeking and implementing solutions to the threats that climate change poses to children. They have a responsibility and must be included in the discourse in Africa.

-From -ACPF Report