Global temperatures have increased significantly over the past-half century and extreme weather events such as cold and heat waves, droughts, floods, and storms have intensified, now dominating the disaster landscape in the 21st century. These changes in the weather patterns (i.e., climate change1) are presenting immense challenges and its effects are particularly severe for the populations of poor countries. This is even truer for fragile environments,2 which may be more vulnerable to humanitarian crisis and instability.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is one of the regions where climate change is expected to push the most people into poverty (39.7 million) if no concrete climate and development action takes place by 2050 (Jafino et al. 2020).

The impacts of climate change could be felt most immensely by those living in fragile and conflict-affected settings in SSA.

The vulnerability of fragile states’ populations to climate change and natural disasters is much higher than in other countries (Mason et al., 2015). Fragile states in SSA with high exposure to climate risks face multifaceted challenges, including physical and livelihood risks for the population. They heavily rely on agriculture, which is climate dependent. Weak governance and conflicts also exert a significant toll on fragile states, thus amplifying their vulnerability to climate change. Burke et al. (2009) found that, in Africa, higher temperatures lead to higher conflict incidence—a 1ºC increase in temperatures leading to a surge in civil conflicts by 4.5 percentage points.

Conflict over land and natural resources, access to basic social services and other measures of fragility have growingly been associated to the effects of climate change (Navone 2021). The Darfur conflict—labeled the “first climate change conflict"—is an important example, given “the convergence of environmental and political factors leading to the conflict” (Sova, 2017).

Temperature shocks and changes in precipitation patterns and/or more frequent and intense weather events imply not just a one-time episode for a fragile state but, more importantly, they could carry implications for the rate of economic growth. Rising temperatures affect agricultural output and determine lower industrial output.

Along with higher temperatures, meteorologists and scientists observe in some areas an increase in the intensity of extreme precipitation and lower precipitation trends in others. Temperature and precipitation are considered in this paper as proxies for climate change on the understanding that augmented heating conditions result in greater evaporation, thus increasing the intensity of droughts, the lack of irrigation, and the negative effect on SSA’s economic growth.

Fragile states in SSA face challenges to respond to the effects of climate shocks and rising temperatures.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2012), rising temperatures in Africa affect people’s health and livelihoods through: (i) erratic precipitation (more extreme and less predictable rainfall); (ii) extreme events (heat waves, tropical cyclones, extreme rainfall, floods, wildfires, and droughts), and (iii) rising seas (risk of coastal erosion and floods, causing physical damage and injury, threatening health with waterborne diseases, and contaminating drinking water and agricultural land with salt).