The East African coast is disappearing beneath our feet, and Mombasa—Kenya’s gateway to the world—stands at the epicenter of a climate catastrophe that demands immediate action.
The stark reality confronting Mombasa today should serve as a wake-up call not just for Kenya, but for coastal cities across Africa and the Global South. As nearly 100 climate experts from 56 countries gathered in the very city they’re studying to draft the IPCC’s landmark report on climate change and cities, the irony was inescapable: they were documenting the demise of their meeting place.
Some areas of Mombasa could experience relative sea level rise of up to 50 centimetres by 2050—enough to permanently flood neighbourhoods that are home to tens of thousands of people. This isn’t a distant threat. It’s happening now, measured in millimeters of annual loss that compound into meters of disappeared coastline.
The Perfect Storm of Vulnerability
Mombasa’s predicament represents a convergence of factors that urban planners worldwide must confront. The city faces what scientists call a “perfect storm” of climate impacts: rising seas, sinking land, extreme weather, and exploding population growth. Around 17 per cent of Mombasa’s area could be submerged by a sea-level rise of 0.3 metres, with a larger area rendered uninhabitable or unusable for agriculture because of water logging and salt stress.
But numbers alone fail to capture the human drama unfolding in neighborhoods like Tudor, where residents like Amina Juma watch helplessly as saltwater transforms their drinking wells into brackish pools. Her story—of wells that provided clean water five years ago now too salty for cooking—illustrates how climate change doesn’t announce itself with dramatic flourishes but creeps into daily life, making the essential impossible.
The ecological destruction is equally devastating. Mombasa has lost 35 percent of its mangrove cover since 1990, forests that serve as natural barriers against storms and nurseries for fish. These living seawalls are retreating inland at 2 meters annually, but urban development blocks their migration path. We’re witnessing an ecosystem in retreat with nowhere left to run.
The Economics of Inaction
Climate change in Mombasa isn’t just an environmental issue—it’s an economic emergency. The city handles 95 percent of Kenya’s international trade, making it East Africa’s economic lifeline. Current exposure to extreme water levels affects 190,000 people and US$470 million in assets, with about 117,000 people living below 10 meters elevation.
Saltwater intrusion alone costs the coastal economy approximately $12 million annually in lost agricultural productivity. Mangroves that support fisheries employing over 30,000 people provide an estimated $15 million annually in ecosystem services. When these natural systems collapse, the economic ripple effects will cascade far beyond Kenya’s borders.
The Funding Paradox
Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of Mombasa’s climate crisis is the funding paradox it reveals. Kenya’s major urban centers, including Mombasa and Nairobi, are excluded from nationally financed climate action programs precisely because they’re classified as large cities. This bureaucratic absurdity means the places facing the greatest climate risks receive the least support.
Internationally, the picture is equally bleak. Of the $100 billion annually pledged by developed countries in 2009 for climate action in developing nations, less than 10 percent reaches urban adaptation projects. This isn’t just policy failure—it’s moral failure on a global scale.
Lessons from the Frontlines
Yet Mombasa’s story isn’t just one of vulnerability—it’s becoming a laboratory for urban climate resilience. Governor Abdulswamad Sheriff Nassir’s Climate Action Plan (2023-2050) represents the kind of local leadership that climate adaptation demands. Crucial strategies for adaptation include infrastructure construction and maintenance, beach nourishment, and diversification away from activities vulnerable to climate change.
The city is exploring nature-based solutions that other African coastal cities can emulate. Instead of investing in expensive and maintenance-heavy infrastructure projects to defend against storm surges, many African coastal cities might choose the nature-based solution of restoring mangroves, dunes, seagrasses, wetlands, and other coastal ecosystems.
The African Imperative
Mombasa’s crisis illuminates a broader African imperative. African cities can rewrite the narrative of vulnerability and become the beacon of resilience and prosperity by coming together, embracing Indigenous knowledge, empowering and supporting citizens, and fostering collaboration. This isn’t just about adapting to climate change—it’s about leading global solutions.
The IPCC report being drafted in Mombasa will include 13 African experts among its authors, ensuring African perspectives shape global climate policy for the first time. This represents a crucial shift from being subjects of climate research to leading it.
The Urgency of Now
The climate scientists gathering in Mombasa aren’t just studying an abstract problem—they’re documenting a crisis that threatens to erase the very ground they stand on. Their work will inform global climate policy when the report is released in March 2027, but Mombasa can’t wait that long.
The time for incremental change has passed. We need emergency-level responses: massive investment in nature-based coastal protection, planned relocation for the most vulnerable communities, and international climate finance that actually reaches the cities that need it most.
Mombasa’s disappearing coastline is more than a local tragedy—it’s a preview of what awaits coastal cities worldwide. The question isn’t whether the ocean will claim more of this ancient port city, but whether we’ll respond with the urgency the crisis demands.
The tide is rising. The choice is ours: adapt or abandon. For Mombasa, for Africa, and for coastal cities everywhere, that choice can’t wait another tide cycle.
