The African Development Bank (AfDB) says it will within the next five years double the climate change finance of Africa to $25 billion. AfDB Vice-President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, Kevin Kariuki, said this at a virtual news conference yesterday in preparation for the bank’s 2022 annual meetings to be held in Accra, Ghana.
Kariuki said the bank would invest the finance to support African countries to become resilient both in adaptation and mitigation between 2020 and 2025.
He disclosed that the AfDB had in the last five years spent $13 billion in the same effort toward adaptation and mitigation of climate change in the continent. Kariuki also said the bank with the Global Centre on Adaptation had committed to mobilise a further $25 billion to address adaptation in Africa.
”Cognisance of the fact that Africa’s greatest interest is on adaptation, we dedicate at least 50 per cent of our climate finance budget to adaptation and last year we dedicated 67 per cent.”
He said: “This means that we are in total resonance of what people of Africa are complaining about. The key thing is to help these countries adapt to the impact of climate change so I think the commitment for us to double our climate change finance to $25 billion is important.”
