Climate Adaptation Support for Transport Resilience in Africa and South Asia

Among the many consequences of climate change, precipitation–related shifts, growing intensity, duration of monsoon seasons, increased rainfall, and prolonged droughts concern Africa and Asian countries the most.

Observed climate trends and projections show that low-income African and South Asia low-income countries (LICs) will continue to face various climate-related disasters.

LICs have been known to have high levels of vulnerability and low adaptive capacity to cope with climate change.

The report, “Adaptation for Transport Resilience to Climate Change (After-CC) for LICs in Africa and South Asia,” aims to discover the current state of knowledge on climate change adaptation for transport infrastructure resilience in Low-Income Countries (LICs) in Africa and South Asia.

It identifies the challenges and gaps in existing knowledge that needs to be addressed to improve transportation infrastructure resilience in both regions.

The report contains six sections, and we present a summary of each below:

Section 1 – Climate change impacts transportation, society, and the economy. Introduces the project and describes the methodology of all project research activities undertaken to produce this report. The project’s research questions revolve around these four themes: future weather patterns as a result of climate change, climate change impacts on transport, society, and the economy, transport resilience and infrastructure adaptation, and capacity building and financing projects.

Section 2 provides a context of the situation in LICs in Africa and South Asia regarding their transport resilience and climate adaptation. Climate change is projected to bring more extreme weather events. Thus, the transport sector must build resilience. Transport resilience is also connected to food security and access to local and international markets.

Section 3 presents the LICs in Africa and South Asia’s ambitions for climate change adaptation. Current global policies are insufficient to reduce the GHG needed to meet the Paris Agreement temperature rise limit of 2C, so adaptation in LICs is essential. This section also looks at LIC’s latest NDCs. Although adaptation is mentioned, there is no specific mention of transportation adaptation which reflects LIC’s insufficient understanding of climate change impacts to transport infrastructure and their lack of technical capacity.

Section 4 outlines the barriers and challenges to implementing transport resilience based on literature, capability assessments, and stakeholder interviews. The literature review shows a gap in weather and climate data and LIC’s capacity to interpret them.

There is a lack of design standards and guidance, monitoring and reporting weather impacts, and transport vulnerability. Stakeholders also mention a low awareness of transport-specific issues among government agencies, reflecting an apparent need to mainstem climate change into public and political debate. Lastly, LICs lack access to funding and technical support.

Section 5 focuses on the needs of LICs and the channels to address them. The section identifies the following gaps: government coordination between national and local levels, capacity building to improve climate and technical knowledge, access to finance, crossovers in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, and stakeholder engagement. The section also outlines the opportunities to close them to improve transport resilience.

Section 6 summarises three actions to improve transport resilience from weather and climate change: government coordination, capacity building, and stakeholder engagement.

Findings from the report are intended to guide policy-making in the transport sector in LICs in Africa and South Asia.

Click the link in the “Source” section below to read the report.