The Sunday Mail
Sifelani Tsiko
Last week, I attended an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report outreach event in Pretoria, South Africa that sought to table evidence on the reality of the devastating impact of climate change in Africa and across the world.
There was a hefty number of distinguished African and European climate experts, a large number of delegates, a significant media presence and of course, “the usual suspects and noise makers” – civil society.
As a Zimbabwean and African committed to the environment, I was interested in where we are with the climate change debate but was somewhat disappointed and I will explain why.
When Jean Pascal van Ypersele, the IPCC vice chair, was making his power-point presentation at the Gallagher Convention Centre, he showed vast swathes of the African continent in grey (no climate change data available).
Blank cells correspond either to no answer from the African countries or data not available or data not communicated.
I asked myself if we as Africans do not have the wherewithal to record and process data and information to submit to the IPCC, but Van Ypersele didn’t really say much else.
Before we knew it, the majority of South Africans and other few Africans who were present at the IPCC outreach event gave Van Ypersele thunderous applause.
As we all know, the devil is in the detail.
Economists have been patting themselves on the back for producing vast amounts of data that show the African economic growth trajectory, similarly, African climatologists also pat themselves on the back for their input into the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC which presents a long list of changes scientists have observed around the world.
Whilst most parts of Africa lack sufficient data to draw conclusions about climate change patterns over the past century on the continent, results for the African continent were presented anyway.
The IPCC report found out that for the remainder of this century, climate change will pose further challenges to food security, livelihoods, health and the well being of Africa.
Additionally, the IPCC reports that temperatures in the African continent are likely to rise more quickly than in other land areas, particularly in more arid regions.
Average temperatures will rise by more than two degrees Celsius, the threshold set in current international agreements, over most of the continent by middle of the 21st century.Average temperatures will also rise by more than four degrees Celsius in the late 21st century.
The changes are projected to be greater over northern and southern Africa but relatively smaller over central Africa.
According to the latest IPCC report, projections for rainfall are less certain than projections for temperature. It says most areas of the African continent do not show changes in average yearly rainfall under low-emissions scenarios.
However, the IPCC says, projections do show a very likely decrease in average yearly rainfall over areas of southern Africa beginning in the mid-21st century and expanding substantially by the late 21st century under high-emission scenarios.
The frequency of hot days, heavy rainfall and drought is expected to increase.
Climatologists all agree that the impact of climate change will affect food security, water availability and human health significantly in Africa with far reaching implications on prices, supply chains, trade, investment and political relations.They all agree that it will progressively threaten economic growth and human security.
But can we safely trust the integrity of the administrative data systems of the IPCC when data about most African countries is completely absent.Can we say Africa has had a fair and meaningful representation of its statistics when presentations do not highlight any facts about some countries?
To what extent can we say the IPCC is misrepresenting continental statistics or can we even say the IPCC report data has accurately portrayed the impact of climate change on the continent when only a few African scientists are involved in the gathering and compilation of the IPCC report?
One issue is clear here about the poor quality of basic climate change, economic and social data in Africa.Basic data are in fact systematically distorted for various competing agendas.
In short even when the IPCC is celebrating the outcome of the latest report, we need to look at the data critically and take it with a grain of salt, for the reality is that there are many African countries whose climate change situation and process are we unknown.
Why are African statistics often wrong, induced upward or downward with biased reported levels or done with overestimated or underestimated coverage rates for the continent?
One African critic suggests that the tragedy lies with donors, including the World Bank and other multilateral finance institutions that undertake statistical activities without first enhancing local country capacities to generate climate data.
Why is this so, the critic says it’s because they need data for their own purpose—to publish reports—and this means getting it faster, with little time to strengthen the countries’ statistical capacity.
“Statistics are not shown for most parts of Africa because there is no data,” said Van Ypersele. “It’s a problem and a challenge but we can fill in the gap with satellite data and other modeling studies.”
He acknowledges that there is need to work closely with the World Meteorological Organisation to strengthen the capacity of African countries, digitalise the processing of data and information on climate change to help give a fair and balanced portrayal of the climate change process on the continent.
He said the IPCC was working with the African Union, African Development Bank and the African climate change network to improve the capacity of African countries to capture data.
University of Zimbabwe development expert Dr Donald Chimanikire bemoaned the poor participation of African scholars in the IPCC process.
“The unfortunate thing is that there are not many African scholars who are participating in the IPCC working groups to accurately capture data for the continent,” he said. “There are very few from Africa and other developing countries and this is worrying.
Climate change issues affect Africa and other developing countries and to make matters worse these are not the major polluters.”
To turn around the African climate change data tragedy, some climate experts say to make data openly accessible and credible; there is need for donors to change their behavior with respect to statistics that should be evaluated, address political interference in weather and statistical agencies that have been inadequately and inconsistently funded over the years.
They further suggest that there is need to fund weather and other research agencies more, to build institutions that can produce accurate, unbiased data and to prioritise the accuracy, timeliness and availability of the basic data on the impact of climate change in Africa to help generate data that can be useful to policymakers and citizens on the continent.
Together, these factors can hopefully improve the quality of data churned out from Africa enhancing the countries’ capacity to collect, manage and disseminate data in a coordinated and effective way.
The just-ended IPCC outreach event sought to present the 5th report which evaluates how patterns of risks and potential benefits are shifting due to climate change to South Africa and other stakeholders in Africa.
It considers how impacts and risks related to climate change can be reduced and managed through adaption and mitigation. The report assesses needs, options, opportunities, constraints, resilience, limits and other aspects associated with adaptation.
The outreach event arose after most stakeholders in Africa felt strongly that there was need to share and disseminate IPCC findings more widely for people to appreciate the scale of the risks associated with climate change.
And, while the IPCC is a hub of climate change information, debate on how the data and information is captured and processed can offer useful insight into the quality of the IPCC data and information as well as offer a platform for cross-referencing and making proper comparisons.
