Over 250 health journals join hands to urge world leaders to deliver climate justice for Africa

The editorial, which is authored by 16 editors of leading biomedical journals across Africa, including African Health Sciences, the African Journal of Primary Health Care and Family Medicine and East African Medical Journal, is simultaneously being published in 50 African journals and and other leading international medical journals such as The BMJ, The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, National Medical Journal of India, and Medical Journal of Australia.

The authors have said in the report that Africa has suffered disproportionately although it has done little to cause the crisis. They have urged wealthy nations to step up support for Africa and vulnerable countries in addressing past, present and future impacts of climate change. The climate crisis has had an impact on the environmental and social determinants of health across Africa, leading to devastating health effects, the authors have explained.

In West and Central Africa, for example, severe flooding resulted in mortality and forced migration from loss of shelter, cultivated land, and livestock, while extreme weather damages water and food supply, increasing food insecurity and malnutrition, which causes 1.7 million deaths annually in Africa. Changes in vector ecology brought about by floods and damage to environmental hygiene has also led to increases in malaria, dengue fever, Ebola virus, and other infectious diseases across sub-Saharan Africa.

In all, it is estimated that the climate crisis has destroyed a fifth of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the countries most vulnerable to climate shocks. The damage to Africa should be of supreme concern to all nations, they have written, because in an interconnected world, leaving countries to the mercy of environmental shocks creates instability that has severe consequences for all nations.

They have acknowledged that some progress has already been made, including early warning systems and infrastructure to defend against extremes, but point out that frontline nations are not compensated for impacts from a crisis they did not cause. This is not only unfair, but also drives the spiral of global destabilisation, as nations pour money into responding to disasters, but can no longer afford to pay for greater resilience or to reduce the root problem through emissions reductions, they warned.

“The climate crisis is a product of global inaction, and comes at great cost not only to disproportionately impacted African countries, but to the whole world,” the authors have written. “Africa is united with other frontline regions in urging wealthy nations to finally step up, if for no other reason than that the crises in Africa will sooner rather than later spread and engulf all corners of the globe, by which time it may be too late to effectively respond.

Lukoye Atwoli, Professor and Dean of Medical College East Africa and Associate Director of Brain and Mind Institute said in the report: “It is time the global community acknowledges that the climate crisis, while disproportionately affecting the continent, is a global crisis. Action must begin now, and begin where it is hurting most, in Africa. Failure to act will make the crisis everyone’s problem very soon.”