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President Uhuru Kenyatta has cautioned that in the abscence of urgent climate change adaptation action, Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) risks contracting by up to 30 percent by the year 2050.

“Evidence indicates that climate change will have a devastating socioeconomic impact across the world and quite severely in Africa. If we do not take any action Africa could, as a consequence, see its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contract by up to 30 percent by 2050 due to climate change,” the President said.

Consequently, the President rallied the global community to support the accelerated roll out of adaptation programmes in Africa so as to mitigate against the growing adverse effects of climate change as well as strengthen the continent’s resilience.

“While it is relatively more difficult to design and implement adaptation projects and while fewer resources are currently available for adaptation, we should not lose sight of the fact that adaptation is, without doubt, smart economics,” he said.

The Head of State’s message was contained in a recorded video address delivered Tuesday at a hybrid conference hosted by the University of Nairobi in partnership with the Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA) to celebrate the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Day, a pre-cursor to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) that will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.