According to the survey published on June 5, most people in the Middle East and Africa believe climate change is already having an impact on their daily lives. Sub-Saharan African residents report higher impacts than MENA residents.  

In Africa and the Middle East, 76% of citizens believe that their country should invest in the development of renewable energies, while only 13% feel that priority should be given to investment in fossil fuels, according to a European Investment Bank survey.

Entitled "The EIB Climate Survey Africa and The Middle East", the report is based on a survey carried out in August 2022 among a sample of 6,105 people aged over 15 in ten African and Middle Eastern countries (Angola, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia).

The percentage of respondents who believe that priority should be given to investment in renewable energies is particularly high in Angola (84%), Tunisia (83%), and Kenya (81%). 88% of respondents also say that climate change is already having an impact on their daily lives.

Also, 61% say that climate disruption and environmental damage have affected their income or livelihood while 52% claim they have already suffered losses as a result of those disruptions. The losses are generally linked to intense and prolonged droughts, rising sea levels, or coastal erosion, as well as extreme weather events such as floods or hurricanes.  

Adaptation initiatives

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest probability of suffering losses due to extreme weather events: 57% of the respondents in Sub-Sahran Africa said they had already suffered losses, compared with only 45% in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region.

For 57% of those surveyed, climate change and environmental degradation have a negative impact on the time they or members of their extended family spend fetching water or wood. 

On the other hand, more than half of those surveyed (57%) claim that they or someone they know has already taken action to adapt to the effects of global warming. Some of these initiatives include investments in water-saving technologies to reduce the impact of drought, and in drain-cleaning in anticipation of flooding. People in Kenya and Senegal are the most likely to take action to adapt to climate change.

Asked to identify the parties responsible for climate change, 38% of survey participants cited industrialized countries, while 36% felt that every country is responsible. Some 25%, however, indicated that climate change occurs naturally, and only 1% said there is no climate change despite the scientific consensus on global warming.