Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-9 (section)

=== FAQ 9.2 | What are the limits and benefits of climate change adaptation in Africa? ===

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''The capacity for African ecosystems to adapt to changing environmental conditions is limited by a range of factors, from heat tolerance to land availability. Adaptation across human settlements and food systems are further constrained by insufficient planning and affordability. Integrated development planning and increasing finance flows can improve African climate change adaptation.''

With increasing warming, there is a lower likelihood species can migrate rapidly enough to track shifting climates, increasing extinction risk across more of Africa. At 2°C global warming more than 10% of African species are at risk of extinction. Species ability to disperse between areas to track shifting climates is limited by fencing, transport infrastructure, and the transformation of landscapes to agriculture and urban areas. Many species will lose large portions of their suitable habitats due to increases in temperature by 2100. Coupled with projected losses of Africa’s protected areas, higher temperatures will also reduce carbon sinks and other ecosystem services. Many nature-based adaptation measures (e.g., for coral reefs, mangroves, marshes) are less effective or no longer effective above 1.5°C of global warming. Human-based adaptation strategies for ecosystems reach their limits as availability and affordability of land decreases, resulting in migration, displacement and relocation.

The limits to adaptation for human settlements arise largely from developmental challenges associated with Africa’s rapid urbanisation, poor development planning, and increasing numbers of urban poor residing in informal settlements. Further limits arise from insufficient consideration of climate change in adaptation planning and infrastructure investment and insufficient financial resources. There are also limits to adaptation for food production strategies. Increasing climate extreme events—droughts and floods—impose specific adaptation responses which poorer households cannot afford. For instance, the use of early maturing or drought-tolerant crop varieties may increase resilience, but adoption by smallholder farmers is hindered by the unavailability or unaffordability of seed.

Adaptation in Africa can reduce risks at current levels of global warming. However, there is very limited evidence for the effectiveness of current adaptation at increased global warming levels. Ambitious, near-term mitigation would yield the largest single contribution to successful adaptation in Africa.

Current adaptation finance flows are billions of USD less than the needs of African countries and around half of finance commitments to Africa reported by developed countries remain undisbursed. Increasing adaptation finance flows by billions of dollars (including public and private sources), removing barriers to accessing finance and providing targeted country support can improve climate change adaptation across Africa.

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