WMO Report: Extreme Weather Killed Over 3,000 in Africa in 2025, Affected 13 Million People

Geneva: Extreme weather and climate-related events affected at least 13 million people and caused more than 3,000 reported fatalities across Africa in 2025, according to the “State of the Climate in Africa 2025” report released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The findings paint a stark picture of a continent increasingly on the frontlines of climate change, even as it contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions.

The report identifies floods as the dominant driver of climate-related devastation across the continent last year, accounting for more than half of all reported extreme weather events, while drought conditions compounded the humanitarian toll in East Africa.

Floods and Drought Drive Widespread Devastation

According to the report, severe flooding in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo together claimed more than 360 lives, representing some of the deadliest individual flooding disasters recorded on the continent in 2025. These events form part of a broader pattern in which flooding has emerged as the single most frequent and destructive category of climate-related disaster affecting African nations.

Simultaneously, drought conditions affected more than 8.5 million people across East Africa, a region that has faced recurring and increasingly severe dry spells in recent years, placing sustained pressure on agricultural production, food security, and water availability for millions of households dependent on rain-fed farming and pastoral livelihoods.

Rising Seas and Vanishing Glaciers

The WMO report also documents alarming long-term environmental changes affecting the continent’s coastlines and mountain ecosystems. Sea-level rise along certain African coasts is now outpacing the global average, according to the report, heightening risks of coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion, and displacement for communities in low-lying coastal areas, many of which are already densely populated and economically vulnerable.

In a further indication of the continent’s environmental transformation, the report notes that Africa’s glaciers, including those on Mount Kilimanjaro, have lost more than 90 percent of their total area since the late nineteenth century. The near-total disappearance of these ice formations, among the continent’s few remaining glacial systems, has been widely cited by climate scientists as one of the most visible markers of long-term warming trends in the region.

Early Warning Systems Remain Critically Limited

Despite the scale of climate risk documented in the report, WMO found that only 40 percent of African countries currently have multi-hazard early warning systems in place, leaving the majority of the continent without adequate infrastructure to anticipate and prepare for extreme weather events before they strike.

The report emphasizes that closer coordination between national meteorological services, disaster management agencies, and local authorities will be essential to closing this gap. WMO specifically pointed to the United Nations’ Early Warnings for All initiative as a key mechanism for strengthening protective systems across the continent, with particular relevance for safeguarding water security and rural livelihoods in the face of intensifying climate volatility.

Africa’s Disproportionate Climate Vulnerability

Africa contributes less than 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet consistently ranks among the regions most severely affected by climate change impacts, a disparity that has become a central theme in international climate negotiations and calls for climate finance reform. The continent’s vulnerability stems from a combination of geographic exposure to extreme weather, heavy reliance on climate-sensitive sectors such as rain-fed agriculture, and limited financial and infrastructural capacity to adapt to and recover from climate shocks.

The WMO’s annual “State of the Climate in Africa” reports have, in recent years, consistently documented rising temperatures, increasingly erratic rainfall patterns, and a growing frequency of extreme weather events across the continent. Previous editions have highlighted similar concerns regarding flooding in West and Central Africa and prolonged drought conditions in the Horn of Africa, a region that experienced one of its most severe multi-year droughts on record earlier in the current decade, pushing millions into acute food insecurity.

The Early Warnings for All initiative, launched by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, aims to ensure that every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems by the end of the decade. The initiative rests on four pillars: disaster risk knowledge, detection and forecasting, dissemination of warnings, and preparedness to act on those warnings. Africa has been identified as a priority region for the initiative’s rollout, given both the continent’s high exposure to climate hazards and the significant gaps in existing warning infrastructure, as reflected in the WMO report’s finding that fewer than half of African nations currently have such systems operational.

Glacial retreat on Mount Kilimanjaro and other African peaks, including Uganda’s Rwenzori Mountains and Kenya’s Mount Kenya, has been documented by scientists for decades as a marker of global climate change, with some projections suggesting the continent’s remaining glaciers could disappear entirely within the coming decades if current warming trends persist. Beyond their symbolic significance, these glaciers have historically played a role in regulating local water systems, and their loss carries implications for downstream water availability in surrounding communities.

The WMO’s findings are expected to feed into ongoing international discussions on climate finance and adaptation support for vulnerable regions, including deliberations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as African nations continue to press wealthier, higher-emitting countries for increased funding to support adaptation and disaster resilience measures across the continent.

Read the full report here.