Climate change threatens Africa

EFFECTS: SOME ASIAN METROS COME HIGH ON RISK LIST

84 of the world’s 100 fastest-growing cities, 79 in Africa, at ‘extreme risk’ – study.

Africa’s rapidly expanding cities face huge threats from climate change over the next 30 years, which could bring knock-on effects such as higher crime rates and civil unrest, risk analysts said yesterday.

Researchers at UK-based Verisk Maplecroft found 84 of the world’s 100 fastest-growing cities are at “extreme risk” from the impacts of a warming planet, including 79 in Africa.

That group contains 15 of the continent’s capital cities and many of its commercial hubs, including Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria’s most populous city Lagos, Tanzanian business hub Dar es Salaam and Angola’s capital Luanda.

The Verisk Maplecroft analysis combined its own yearly index of vulnerability to climate change with United Nations (UN) projections on urban population growth to 2035. Fast-rising populations act as “a risk multiplier in lower-income cities with poor public infrastructure and inadequate disaster response mechanisms”, with more people putting strain on limited resources, it said.

Kinshasa, for instance, is home to about 13 million people, but that figure is set to double by 2035.

The city is exposed to shocks from extreme weather, including flooding, as well as slower climate pressures such as drought in surrounding areas, which could drive poor farmers into the city while disrupting food and water supplies, the analysis noted.

It and other African cities at extreme risk are grappling with high poverty levels, expanding slums, weak governance and limited ability to adapt to climate shifts, researchers said.

Niall Smith, an environmental analyst with Verisk Maplecroft, warned wilder weather and rising sea levels could “underpin a whole host of secondary impacts and social issues” such as poverty, violence and resource insecurity.

Commenting on the findings, Mami Mizutori, head of the UN office for disaster risk reduction, said rapid, unplanned urbanisation – “where slums are being created overnight” – is increasing disaster risk in many developing-world cities.

Some Asian metros also came high on the risk list, highlighting the substantial economic exposure to climate change in major emerging markets.