Africa needs £183bn per year to fight climate change

Countries in the majority world will need at least $267 billion (£183 billion) a year to fight climate change and adapt to rising seas, flooding, droughts, and heat waves, according to a new report by 50 African nations.

The figure is more than double the development aid currently given by rich world countries, although the African Group, who authored the report, point out that it is just 0.5% of the gross domestic product of rich world nations.

The report is part of Africa’s text for negotiations on the new UN climate treaty, due to be agreed in Copenhagen later this year.

“Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change, with major development and poverty eradication challenges and limited capacity for adaptation,” the report reads.

Developing nations need help to limit rising emissions, the report says, through energy efficiency and moving towards renewables such as solar and wind power.

A recent report by the European Commission estimated that the worldwide cost of fighting climate change would be around €175 billion ($227.1 billion) per year in 2020.

Environmental groups welcomed the African Group’s report as more realistic than EU estimates.

“It shows the scale of what’s needed,” said Kathrin Gutman, head of environment policy at WWF.

“We’re not talking about tens of billions of dollars - it’s far more.”

She added that the UN is being forced to oversee a ’strange chicken and egg situation’ whereby rich nations want to poor to give their plans for fighting climate change before they’ll give cash, whilst the poor want funds before deciding what they’ll set out to achieve.

The African Group believes that nations in the rich world should seek to cut carbon emissions 80-95% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.