Where are the Africans in African Climate Science?

 

I noticed in my research for the previous blog post, the lack of literature on climate change in Africa that is published by an academic in Africa. Therefore, I am making a short blog post to note the underrepresentation of African academics in the climate change field.

Less than half of literature on African climate change has even one author from an African institution, none of the lead authors on the top 100 most cited climate science papers from 2016-2020 were African, and only 4 African scholars were on the Reuters 1000 ‘Hot List’ – all South African men. This skew results from ‘parachute science’, where foreign academics do research in Africa without involvement or crediting of local scientists. Western European and American institutions are also both the main sources and receivers of funding for climate research, with African institutions receiving only 14.5% of global climate research funding.

The consequences of this bias are not explicit, but can be assumed, from COP26 scientists reporting that climate change will hit Africans hardest while failing to properly consider them in the resulting Glasgow Climate Pact, to CMIP6 models consistently displaying strong biases across the continent (1, 2, 3).