The Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the body widely recognized as the international authority on climate change — give clear evidence of increased warming across Africa. The reports put forward a powerful case that increases in global temperatures are the result of human-induced climate change. Unless appropriate adaptation action is taken to reduce the impacts of climate change and variability — evident in rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heat waves —Africa stands to lose hard-fought economic and development advances seen over the last decade. Adapting to the changing climate requires not only understanding past and future climate risks but also factoring climate research findings into development policy, planning and practice within climate sensitive socio-economic sectors such as food and agriculture, disaster risk reduction, energy, natural resources management (e.g. water, forests and land) and health as well as sectors dealing with migration, gender, urbanization, infrastructure, marine and coastal zones, etc.
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