The IPCC publishes its new report focusing on adaptation to climate change
The Gambian coastal strip is not sufficiently protected by the rising waters.
Getty Images/Frans Sellies
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The long-awaited second report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) comes out this Monday, February 28 and should also focus on the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
This new synthesis of all existing scientific knowledge was carried out by 270 scientists from all over the world and took three years to complete.
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For two weeks, the representatives of all the States of the world have met behind closed doors around the text developed by the scientists of the IPCC.
They agreed on a summary for policy makers.
This document, released on Monday, should detail how we will be affected by climate change that is already unavoidable and which will accelerate according to experts.
With extreme temperatures, repeated droughts and floods, hurricanes or the inevitable rise in water levels.
And faced with these risks, the report will also specify how our societies must prepare, adapt, to avoid death, destruction, economic and agricultural losses.
Because the researchers also intend to point out that the States are not ready to cope.
We need a real political vision of anticipation... to develop our societies and provide funding, they say.
The text is therefore a warning, but must propose solutions.
Political awareness is still emerging in many places.
There are certain regions, certain countries where the question is extremely significant because of the droughts, the rise in the level of the sea are already extremely concrete risks which push the political leaders to seize it.
Vivian Depoues (researcher) believes that States are very behind in their adaptation policies
Jane Richard
At the same time, a meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly is taking place in Nairobi.
Adaptation to climate change and the management of pollution already created by rich countries will be discussed.
Urgent funding needs
In the background, money, the sinews of war for any adaptation or solution.
African leaders, in particular, meeting in Nairobi for three days will come with several resolutions including an ambitious agreement to regulate plastic pollution.
But all of this comes at a cost.
Just to clean up this waste, it will take about 50 billion dollars, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
However, the account is not there.
The countries of the South are still waiting for the 100 billion dollars a year promised by the rich countries to compensate for part of the damage they have caused.
If we consider plastic waste, it is estimated that 11 million tons of this waste is dumped into the ocean every year.
The environmental impact is estimated at $50 billion.
We all pay one way or another.
This problem accompanies you on a daily basis.
Because each time you have decisions to make, you will do so with a deficit of 50 billion.
The expectation, of course, is that there is a global agreement on plastic pollution.
The country which is presented in the world as being a good student in this field is Rwanda.
The resolution submitted to the United Nations Assembly on plastic pollution, aimed at creating an international legally binding instrument, is co-sponsored by Rwanda and Peru.
The resolution is also supported by 54 other countries, including many from Africa.
So here we see evidence of African leadership.
Patricia Mbote, Legal Affairs Officer, United Nations Environment Program
Christina Okello
25 billion of this envelope was initially dedicated to the adaptation component, that is to say to prepare for the consequences of climate change.
The Glasgow conference in October 2021 decided to double this funding, but it remains well below needs.
Meanwhile, countries like Ethiopia and South Sudan are already paying up to 5% of their GDP to adapt.
For example, Guinea, another African country affected by climate change, is now facing droughts when it used to be the castle of West Africa.
Before, there was rain for four months, five months, now when it falls, it does not exceed three months.
You've seen what we're doing, we water, we spend the whole day looking for water points.
[Reportage] In Guinea, the rainy season is getting shorter with climate change
Matthias Raynal
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