This month’s extreme rainfall that caused destructive floods in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), leading to at least 33 deaths, cutting off major roads and sweeping away homes, is set to occur every two years at current levels of global warming, scientists have found.
Torrential downpours in Kinshasa, which started on April 4, caused the N’djili River – a tributary of the Congo River – to burst its banks, inundating half the city’s 26 districts, submerging key infrastructure, displacing thousands of residents and cutting off access to drinking water.
Scientists working with the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group – which assesses how climate change affects extreme weather – said such periods of heavy rainfall are no longer rare in today’s climate with global warming of around 1.3 degrees Celsius.
Data from two weather stations in Kinshasa indicated that seven-day spells of rainfall have become about 9-19% more intense since 1960 – and rains could become heavier with fossil fuel warming, the researchers warned.
While there was not enough data to determine the influence of climate change on the latest flooding episode, it aligns with scientific studies on rainfall in the DRC and projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for Central Africa, WWA said.
As Trump upends aid and markets, who will pay for green development in Global South?
Kinshasa’s location next to the Congo River and its dense population, most of who live in informal housing, make the city prone to deadly floods and landslides, the researchers added.
With the city’s population of nearly 18 million expected to double in two decades – alongside continued deforestation for construction, building of homes in flood-prone riverside areas as well as limited drainage and sewage systems – flooding is expected even with moderate rains, the researchers noted.
Shaban Mawanda, policy and resilience advisor at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said the severe effects of the floods “are not surprising” because Kinshasa is ill-prepared for periods of extreme rainfall, which have become common occurrences.
The researchers highlighted how high levels of poverty and the worsening conflict in the east of the country make the Congolese population more vulnerable to extreme weather.
Conversely, climate change is making it even harder for fragile states, such as the DRC, to get ahead as frequent spells of heavy rain are destroying homes, wiping out crops and cancelling economic gains, said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College. She added that “with every fraction of a degree of fossil fuel warming, the weather will get more violent, creating a more unequal world.”
Lack of weather data limits preparedness
The 18 researchers who examined the DRC flooding – drawn from universities and meteorological agencies in the DRC, Rwanda, Sweden, the US, UK and Netherlands – emphasised that they could not quantify the influence of climate change on the recent heavy rains, partly because of limited investment in weather monitoring and climate science in Africa.
Ethiopia’s bold EV ambitions hit bumps in rural areas
Dieudonne Nsadisa Faka, a climate expert from the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), said the evidence from the two Kinshasa weather stations showing an increase of up to 19% in rainfall intensity “is not the smoking gun our study was looking for”.
“This failure highlights a deeper problem,” he said, explaining that climate science has long overlooked much of Africa, particularly the Central African rainforest region.
Globally, research has focused mainly on extreme weather in wealthy countries, meaning the changing risks of events in many African countries are not well understood. Out of seven WWA studies that produced inconclusive results, four examined weather events in Africa, the researchers said.
They highlighted that more investment in weather stations and climate science in Africa is needed to help countries understand shifting extremes, prepare for the future and prevent deaths such as those experienced in the Kinshasa floods.
Africa needs more weather attribution studies and better datasets to understand how its countries are impacted by climate change, as well as financial support to tackle the threat, said Joyce Kimutai, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy.
ExxonMobil helps Amazon nation Guyana build ‘petrostate’, while people stay poor
As an African scientist, Kimutai said she finds today’s situation “incredibly frustrating”.
“Climate change is not a problem caused by Africa,” she said in a statement to media. “Our continent has contributed just 3-4% of global emissions, but is getting pummelled by extreme weather and still isn’t receiving funding for adaptation promised by wealthy countries at global climate summits.”
