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January 25, 2023
Editor’s Note
This article was first published on March 3, 2022 with the title “Latest IPCC Report Projects Drought Will Displace 700 Million in Africa.” This was based on the then publicly available IPCC WGII Sixth Assessment Report Final Draft Chapter 9 on Africa, as seen here. We regret that at the time of publication, we missed the chapter footer of “Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute.”
In late 2022, it came to our attention that this particular statistic of 700 million displaced by 2050 was possibly questionable. Although we found ample evidence of its use in UNESCO’s 2009 report “Water in a Changing World,” United Nations news stories and the World Meteorological Organization’s “State of the Climate in Africa 2021” report and press release, which we shared in response to inquiries, in the interest of accuracy, we reached out to the Chapter 9 authors for first-hand commentary and clarification.
On January 9, 2023, the chapter authors confirmed that the 700 million statistic was a text error because the authors did not find strong evidence for the number in the peer-reviewed literature. The error was recorded in the corrigenda that subsequently accompanied the Final Draft. Please see page 45 of the IPCC corrigenda here.
For these reasons, Climate Refugees has amended the title and relevant content of this article to correctly reflect the Final Draft findings of the IPCC Africa Chapter.
We regret any confusion and thank you for your understanding
Amali Tower
The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report was released Monday, focusing on the impacts of climate change, as well as the vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities of both the environment and society. Chapter 9 of the report provides a regional analysis for Africa, projecting climate change and climate variability impacts, including water stress, reduced crop yields and increased urban to rural migration within countries and between neighboring countries as a result.
The south-western provinces of Angola are currently in their fifth consecutive year of a devastating drought. A drought which the World Food Programme has identified as the worst to hit the country in 40 years. Among those most impacted are rural communities relying on subsistence agriculture for their survival.
With failed harvests and no grazable land for their animals, 1.58 million people are facing extreme levels of food insecurity. This has forced thousands to flee to other provinces and across borders to neighboring Namibia, with some walking for days over 100 miles on foot.
““I don’t feel well thinking about my mother living there [in Angola] without any food. Sometimes I think if only I could send someone back to tell them that, ‘Mother has to come here because here we can survive,’” - Mekondjo Zefelino, who, despite having a disability, crawled for 106 miles alone to reach Namibia in search of food.”
The Horn of Africa, a region in eastern Africa containing Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya is also facing its worst drought in 40 years with 13 million people facing severe hunger. The current drought as well as previous ones in the region have displaced hundreds of thousands. The numbers from drought related displacement in Somalia are astounding. In 2011, 456,169 displaced, and a yearlong drought between 2016 and 2017 displaced an estimated 943,000. As of recently, an ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa has already displaced 245,000 within Somalia.
Climate scientists point to climate change and an ongoing La Niña – a climate pattern resulting in dryer weather for the Horn of Africa - as the cause. Those same climate scientists also predict a 90% chance that the upcoming March, April, May rainy season in the Horn of Africa will be depressed resulting in a fourth consecutive failed rainy season for Somalia. With this information, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Displacement Tracking Matrix analysis projects the current drought will go on to displace between 1,036,000 to 1,415,000 over the next six months.
Similar scenarios like this are playing out across Africa as a result of climate change but some like those in Madagascar have no neighboring countries to migrate to when disaster strikes. Madagascar like Angola is also currently experiencing one of its worst droughts on record with 1.64 million people facing extreme hunger in the early months of 2022. This coupled with back- to-back cyclones as covered in a previous Spotlight has displaced hundreds of thousands across the island.
“ “Technological, institutional and financing factors are major
barriers to climate adaptation feasibility in Africa””
Climate change is already ravaging the continent of Africa and millions are already displaced. The IPCC report concludes its chapter on Africa by identifying the limits and constraints of climate change adaptation within the continent and there is a common theme, ‘insufficient resources’. In that brief section on adaptation, insufficient financial resources are referenced as a constraint to Africa’s ability to adapt to climate change.
Wealthy developed nations must recognize the time for action on climate change is now. Africa is just one example of how vulnerable nations are suffering from the inaction of wealthy high emitting nations to curb their emissions. The latest IPCC Report is a wakeup call to the Global North, the time for action on climate change is now and the time to address loss and damage is now. Africa faces unimaginable loss in the very near future. Will current events in Africa and the latest IPCC projections be enough to finally push the Global North to address loss and damage? The time to pressure leaders to act is now.
Update: January 25, 2023: A previous version of this article contained the title: “Latest IPCC Report Projects Drought Will Displace 700 Million.”
The original story contained a pulled quote from a previous IPCC final draft Africa chapter (see picture above) “By 2030, about 250 million people may experience high water stress in Africa, with up to 700 million people displaced as a result.”
The original story made reference to the 700 million displacement elsewhere in the article as well, “with up to 700 million people displaced as s result…”, which has since been deleted to reflect the updated IPCC Africa Chapter.
Please see Editor’s Note above
Further reading on Madagascar and drought in Africa in SPOTLIGHT
