Africa, the world's poorest region, is the continent that is most vulnerable to the uncertainties and weather extremes of climate change, because of ecological vulnerabilities and widespread poverty seriously limits adaptation capabilities. The IPCC found that "extreme climate events such as floods, strong winds, droughts and tidal waves" are the main threats to Africa from climate change.

"Africa - Up in Smoke?" is the definitive text on the social impacts of climate change in Africa. It finds that efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa will ultimately fail unless urgent action is taken to halt dangerous climate change and to assist communities to adapt to the inevitable impacts. The report also details innovative community driven projects to increase resilience to the impacts of climate change. The information on this page is taken from the "Africa - Up in Smoke?" report.

In Africa, over 70 percent of workers rely on small-scale farming that is dependent on direct rainfall. Food security can be threatened by even the slightest changes in weather patterns. The coordination of aid efforts and design of development policies will be seriously challenged by the impacts of climate change.

Impoverished, marginalised people are often directly dependent on the diversity in local ecosystems to support their livelihood. If climate change is not averted, an additional 80-120 million people will be at risk of hunger. Seventy to eighty per cent of these people will be in Africa, and the majority are likely to be women, who have a greater reliance on subsistence farming. Climate change threatens to wipe out plant species used in traditional medicines. The WHO estimates that 80% of the world's population in developing countries depends on these plants for primary health care.

In 2004, a locust plague occurred in several West African countries as a result of desertification and higher temperatures that are likely to have been exacerbated by climate change. The plague destroyed millions of hectares of crops, causing a food crisis for the people in the Sahel. An example of the impact of natural disasters is evident in the recent history of Mozambique, which in 2000 experienced the worst floods in living memory. The floods destroyed a third of the country's crops, entire villages disappeared, and hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless. It is estimated that up to 350,000 jobs were lost, threatening the wellbeing of up 1.5 million people.

Africa's vulnerability to climate change is also exacerbated by widespread poverty, recurrent droughts and floods, disease, conflict, and an immediate daily dependence on natural resources and biodiversity. Export trade barriers and the burden of unpayable debt further reduce the resources available for adaptation.

Two thirds of the rural population and one third of the urban population are already effected by a lack of access to safe drinking water in Africa. Climate change is expected to exacerbate Africa's persistent water-stress. Due to the large number of subsistence-based communities, water scarcity presents a very serious hazard for peoples' existence. As rainfall declines, the quality of water deteriorates because sewage and industrial effluents become more concentrated, thereby exacerbating water-borne diseases and reducing the quality and quantity of fresh water available for domestic use. In the Nile region for example, most scenarios estimate a decrease in river flow of up to 75 per cent by 2100, displacing up to 90 million people by 2015.

See also: Increases in Refugees

Loss of food and water security may lead to increased conflict. In Kenya, there have been territorial disputes over receding water bodies, and increases in cattle raiding and violence as as people who have historically managed through periods of drought and food shortages find themselves dealing with unprecedented famine.

The health implications of climate change for African peoples and nations is profound as many areas of Africa are already experiencing severe health problems such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and hunger related diseases. Climate change will increase experience of heat stress, injury and death from natural disasters (such as floods and windstorms), vector-borne diseases (such as malaria, dengue, schistosomiasis and tick-borne diseases) and water-borne and food-borne diseases. Women are likely to be disproportionately affected by the increased disease burden.

It is estimated that by 2050 there will be 250 million people who will be forced to flee their homes due to drought, desertification and extreme weather events. Worldwide environment-related migration has been most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2005, Professor Norman Myers stated that of the 25 million environmental refugees recorded in 1995, roughly five million in the African Sahel and four million were in the Horn of Africa. In other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa where 80 million people were considered semi-starving due largely to environmental factors, seven million people migrated in order to survive. Of the millions of people starving in other parts of Africa, a large, but undocumented number could also be considered environmental refugees.

See also: Increases in Refugees