Climate change and global warming costs African countries 5% of their GDP, according to the UN.

The continent releases less than 10% of greenhouse gas emissions globally but continues to bear a disproportionate impact of global warming.

African countries spend 9% of their budgets to counter climate change. Meanwhile, they only receive 1% of annual global climate finance.

“The climate crisis is an economic sinkhole, sucking the momentum out of economic growth,” Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told a meeting of African ministers of environment in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

“Over the past 60 years, Africa has observed a warming trend that has become more rapid than the global average,” said Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization Celeste Saulo.