2024 is soon coming to an end, but not in the memories of scores of families in parts of Africa which lost loved ones, assets and sources of livelihoods to weather vagaries that arose from temperatures surge recorded over the past 12 months.

As the year rose to become the hottest on record, resultant adverse weather events – the likes of torrential rains, cyclones and draughts – increased in both frequency and intensity, wreaking more havoc in Africa and other parts of the global south.

The continent with 54 countries and around 1.4 billion people is responsible for only 4 per cent of emissions that cause climate change, but it has 17 in the list of 20 nations threatened the most by effects of the warming of the planet.

It accounts for majority of worldwide deaths linked to climate disasters which escalate each year.

Both the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Africa Center for Strategic Studies reported unusually heavy rainfall in 27 countries in Africa’s tropical zone in 2024, which affected roughly 11 million people, including 2,500 fatalities and 4 million displacements.

Effects were devastating in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mozambique and its neighbours are the latest casualty reeling from effects of cyclone Chido which had just struck France’s overseas territory of Mayotte in early December.

Cause for concern

For affected families, the journey to recovery is everyday struggle, but, for many, what lay in store in 2025 is cause for even more concern in light of industrialized nations’ failure to handle the climate crisis with the gravity and urgency it deserves.

In parts of East Africa’s Uganda, a predominantly agriculture country, for instance, local communities are worried that more disasters will erode chances of survival. Torrential rains and droughts not only claims lives but also constantly wash away arable land and dry up rivers, rendering villages and towns unlivable.

“The harsh reality of the climate crisis is felt by us who lack wealth. We did not cause this, but we pay the price with floods and droughts that have claimed the lives of our loved ones and we have lost homes. We live in this crisis on a daily basis. We won’t let the injustice destroy our future,” protests Ian Agaba, one of the young Ugandans involved in ongoing campaign to demand climate justice.

Governments in Africa have been redirecting a chunk of domestic resources and what they receive in aid towards coping with effects of climate change, but many are overwhelmed as the adverse weather events and the damage they cause escalate year in year out.

Efforts by grassroots communities and local initiatives that respond to the climate crisis are undermined by lack of support despite collectively preserving one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, from dense rainforests of the Congo Basin, the savannas of East Africa to the wide network of water bodies and others.

For local climate justice organisations, nations responsible for the climate mess still owe the global south a debt, and have failed to avail the resources needed to avert the worst from happening.

They still haven’t come to terms with the outcome of the latest UN climate negotiations in Azerbaijan. The $300 billion deal for climate finance from COP29 was, to some, a slap in the face (of least developed countries) and a disappointment. To others, it is a disaster and betrayal.

Mohamed Adow, director at Power Shift Africa, a think tank working to mobilise climate action in Africa, says the COP29 outcome and finance provision of $300 billion – against $1.3 trillion developing countries were asking for – is a strong example of the gross failure to take the climate crisis with the gravity it deserves.

“After all countries spend $1 trillion per year to subsidise fossil fuel products. Failure to raise more in climate finance only heightens the risk of devastation for millions. We are like a duck that sits pretty in its nest in the middle of an impending storm,” he said.

Burden of debts

Domestic resources in Africa may not salvage the situation even in cases where governments had to borrow or divert debt for development projects towards responding to effects of climate-induced disasters.

Many countries in the global south already owe much in debts and are paying a lot more in interests that they don’t have resources left to take climate action.

“It’s concerning that 55 per cent of the public funds provided to the least developed countries was in the form of loans, increasing our debt burden and going against our sustainable development goals’ targets. It’s unfortunate,” says Rohey John, Gambia’s environment minister who represents least developed nations (LDCs) at UN climate talks.

She deplores the fact that existing climate plans popularly known as National Determined Contributions (NDCs) including adaptation measures were largely unimplemented as they are conditional on the delivery of means of implementation with critical needs for finance.

When Germany State secretary and special envoy for international climate action, Jennifer Morgan, announced at the inaugural Africa Climate Summit last year, €60 million debt-for-adaptation swap with Kenya, it gave the rise to the debate as to whether industrialised countries and multilateral funds ought to forego debt owed by vulnerable nations so it can be used for climate action.

Governments on the African continent have also been pushing to be granted unused reserves — Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) — at World Bank and the IMF to help deal with the climate crisis.

Opinions are still divided on the matter.