A new report has laid bare the scale of Africa’s climate emergency, revealing that the period between 2021 and 2025 has been the most devastating five-year stretch in terms of human toll from weather, climate, and water-related disasters.
The State of Africa’s Environment 2025 report—produced by the India-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down To Earth—was released Thursday, September 18 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during a media briefing that brought together journalists from across the continent.
The 152-page report shows that about 412 million people in Africa have been affected by extreme weather events in the past 15 years, with more than half of them (53.77%) impacted in just the last five years. At least 41,549 people lost their lives, the majority between 2021 and 2025. Droughts were by far the most significant hazard, affecting 178 million people in that period.
Beyond immediate casualties, the crisis is reshaping entire communities. The report warns that Africa is set to face the world’s highest rate of displacement due to climate impacts if urgent action is not taken. Already, nearly 222 million people have been forced to move in the past five years.
Food security is under severe strain. Climate change, combined with land degradation, has caused an 18% drop in agricultural production and triggered widespread disease outbreaks. Cocoa production in West and Central Africa — which supplies 70% of the world’s cocoa — is particularly at risk.
The health implications are equally stark. In 2023, malaria transmission rose by 14%, and by 2030 an additional 147–171 million people could be at risk.
“In Zambia, Ghana and Cameroon, the external public debt service exceeds the losses from climate disasters by over 50 times”
The authors noted
Economic pressures compound these vulnerabilities. African nations are projected to spend nearly 30% of their revenues servicing debt in 2025, leaving little room for climate adaptation or loss-and-damage financing. “In Zambia, Ghana and Cameroon, the external public debt service exceeds the losses from climate disasters by over 50 times,” the authors noted.
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Rita Bissoonauth, UNESCO Director of the Addis Ababa Liaison Office to the AU and UNECA, stressed that the findings arrive at a pivotal moment. “It is not just an environmental crisis. It is a profound inequality,” she said, urging journalists to humanize climate stories, track financing, and highlight local solutions.
Echoing this concern, Negus Lemma, Deputy Director General of the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority, noted that Africa’s most vulnerable — rural populations, women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and those in poverty—bear the heaviest burdens of climate change and pollution.
Sunita Narain, Director of CSE, underscored how recurring disasters erode development gains. “Every year, extreme weather is breaking a new record. As events become more frequent, survival becomes more difficult,” she said, adding that repeated shocks leave people with dwindling capacity to cope.
Yet the report also points to a path forward. Professor Kassahun Tesfaye, Director General of the Bio and Emerging Technology Institute at Ethiopia’s Ministry of Innovation and Technology, argued that Africa’s greatest liability — its vulnerable natural resources — could become its greatest asset through a sustainable bioeconomy.
“The solution lies not in simply trying to mitigate a crisis we did not create, but in pioneering a new model of development altogether. That model is the African Bioeconomy”
Professor Kassahun Tesfaye
The bioeconomy, he explained, relies on renewable biological resources—such as crops, forests, animals, and microorganisms—to produce food, materials, and energy in a circular, regenerative system. “The solution lies not in simply trying to mitigate a crisis we did not create, but in pioneering a new model of development altogether. That model is the African Bioeconomy,” he said.
For this vision to take root, Tesfaye emphasized three pillars of action: investment in science, technology, and innovation; supportive policy frameworks; and strong partnerships.
