Climate costing Africa up to five percent of GDP a year, says Ramaphosa

AFRICAN countries are losing up to five percent of their gross domestic products (GDPs) a year due to the impacts of climate change, outgoing coordinator of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC) and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday.

Ramaphosa said Africa is experiencing the worst impacts of phenomena associated with global warming such as droughts, floods and cyclones.

“Climate change impacts are costing Africa between three and five percent of their GDPs. Despite not being responsible for causing climate change, it is Africans who are bearing both the brunt and the cost,” Ramaphosa in an address to the CAHOSCC meeting.

He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had “set back multilateral processes, including around climate change.”

“It is imperative that we do not lose momentum, and that climate change is not relegated to the periphery of the global development agenda.”