In our interconnected world, the impacts of climate change, as well as the mitigation and adaptation actions taken in one or more countries, can generate risks to neighbouring countries, or cascade across regions and the wider world. These are ‘transboundary climate risks’ or TCRs. African policy makers are calling attention to the transboundary risks that can arise from mitigation and adaptation actions.
In keeping with the AU and the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment’s (AMCEN’s) calls to action and the Paris Agreement, this brief highlights five significant TCRs in Africa that urgently need consideration for management:
- biophysical (potential impacts on shared natural resources or the cross-border spread of livestock disease);
- financial (such as foreign direct investment in major infrastructure projects);
- trade (import and export of climate- sensitive goods like rice and implications for food security);
- people-centred (cross-border movement, ranging from displacement to transhumance); and
- geopolitical (regional cooperation on multi-country efforts like the Great Green Wall).
The authors draw on real examples from countries across Africa to show how TCRs, and the ways in which they are handled, create significant impacts for other countries. The brief provides some practical recommendations for how African regional economic communities and their Member States can work together to manage these risks, in keeping with existing climate policy frameworks and objectives.
Key Messages
- The impacts of climate change, as well as the mitigation and adaptation actions taken in one or more countries, can generate risks to neighbouring countries or cascade across regions and the wider world. These are transboundary climate risks.
- Transboundary climate risks have the potential to set back economic development gains, jeopardise trade and food security and impact infrastructure investments in Africa.
- Growing populations and shifting diets are creating new dependence on food imports in Africa, which generates new transboundary climate risks for food security.
- Foreign direct investment and infrastructure investments are a critical part of Africa’s green, sustainable development agenda, but infrastructure which is not resilient to climate change impacts is at risk of damage, poor performance or destruction. This raises a number of risks regarding debt and cascading regional economic losses as a result of disrupted connectivity.
- Hydropower is responsible for the majority of Africa’s electricity generation, but climate impacts to water supply, such as prolonged drought, create issues for hydropower generation which can cascade and create trigger cross-border risks.
- Transboundary climate risks call for greater cooperation and management between the African Union, regional economic communities and their Member States in areas such as trade, regional infrastructure and agriculture.
