How Africa will be affected by climate change

Africa is more vulnerable than any other region to the world's changing weather patterns, explains climate specialist Richard Washington.

The African continent will be hardest hit by climate change. 

There are four key reasons for this:

• First, African society is very closely coupled with the climate system; hundreds of millions of people depend on rainfall to grow their food

• Second, the African climate system is controlled by an extremely complex mix of large-scale weather systems, many from distant parts of the planet and, in comparison with almost all other inhabited regions, is vastly understudied. It is therefore capable of all sorts of surprises

• Third, the degree of expected climate change is large. The two most extensive land-based end-of-century projected decreases in rainfall anywhere on the planet occur over Africa; one over North Africa and the other over southern Africa

• Finally, the capacity for adaptation to climate change is low; poverty equates to reduced choice at the individual level while governance generally fails to prioritise and act on climate change

Is Africa sleepwalking into a potential catastrophe?