Lack of education and capital. World Bank experts note several deficiencies that most developing and poor countries suffer from in adapting to global warming or at least mitigating it. These handicaps are all the more alarming given that, for the African continent alone, warming is already more pronounced.
The World Meteorological Organization reported on Monday that “the African continent has warmed at a rate slightly faster than the global average, or about +0.3°C per decade between 1991 and 2023.” North Africa has experienced the fastest warming, with temperatures reaching, for example, a record 50.4°C in Agadir, Morocco. The organization also notes that in September and October 2023, “around 300,000 people were affected by flooding in 10 countries, with the worst affected being Niger, Benin, Ghana and Nigeria,” a few months after Libya and East Africa.
Insufficient funding
In the face of such calamities, financing is not up to par. This is what the World Bank has observed. More than 60% of banks established in poor countries devote less than 5% of their credit portfolio to climate-related investments. Worse still, 28% of them devote no investment at all to it.
In their defense, it is true that financial institutions are not receiving much help from their regulators. In three-quarters of rich countries, systems have been set up to identify so-called “green” financing in order to help banks target it. The Bank notes that less than 10% of emerging and developing countries have done so.
Young people with little training
Adding to this lack of capital is the particular problem of education. Only 1.5% of the meager climate financing is dedicated to education, the multilateral institution revealed in a report, published Tuesday. Since 2022, no less than 400 million students have experienced a school closure due to heat. In Brazil, for example, students in the poorest 50% of municipalities could lose half of their schooling due to extreme temperatures.
On average, for emerging and developing countries, 11 school days were lost each year due to school closures, compared to 2.4 days in richer countries. For the poorest countries, the deficit is even higher (18 school days lost). To date, education systems are not providing young people with the information, skills and opportunities they need to address these climate issues, underlines Mamta Murthi, one of the vice presidents of the World Bank.
This year, a 10-year-old child will experience three times as many floods, five times as many droughts, and 36 times as many heat waves in his or her lifetime as a 10-year-old child did in 1970. The Bank estimates that about $18 per child would be enough to improve classroom temperatures, build resilient infrastructure, and train teachers in adaptation measures. But the money is needed.