Zambia faces increasing climate risks, with rising temperatures and declining rainfall projected to intensify droughts, floods, and water scarcity, particularly in southern and western regions. Key sectors vulnerable to climate change include agriculture, energy, and infrastructure. Agriculture is at risk from lower maize yields and livestock losses, threatening food security, especially for rural farmers. The country’s reliance on hydropower, already strained by drought, creates energy security challenges impacting the wider economy, including copper production, a critical export for Zambia and global green technology supply chains.

While the government has integrated climate considerations into policies like climate-smart agriculture and renewable energy, challenges remain in mobilizing finance, building institutional capacity, and ensuring effective coordination for climate adaptation. Future strategies will need to focus on managing scarce water resources, enhancing infrastructure resilience, and leveraging regional differences to support vulnerable communities and create new agricultural opportunities in northern Zambia.

Zambia recently experienced a severe drought, worsened by El Niño, which led to one of the worst dry spells in southern Africa in a century. The drought caused Lake Kariba, the world’s largest man-made reservoir, to drop close to record low levels. This affected the Kariba Dam, which provides about one-third (1,080 MW) of Zambia’s electricity through hydropower.

As a result, Zambia faced daily power cuts, severely impacting the economy and livelihoods. The drought also damaged crops across the region. In response, Zambia began investing in new coal and solar power projects to reduce its dependence on hydropower and strengthen energy security in the face of climate change.

Zambia faces significant climate finance challenges, requiring substantial investments to implement its climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. The National Adaptation Plan (NAP) for 2023–2035 necessitates approximately $34.7 billion to enhance climate resilience across various sectors. Additionally, the revised Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) aims for a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy by 2030, with an estimated cost of $17.2 billion. The National Green Growth Strategy further outlines a need for $10.4 billion between 2024 and 2030 to support sustainable economic development.

In December 2024, the World Bank approved a $100 million financing package, including a $75 million Catastrophe Drawdown Option (Cat-DDO), to bolster Zambia's resilience to natural disasters. Earlier, in May 2024, an Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement was signed with the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund, potentially unlocking up to $30 million for communities in Eastern Province engaging in sustainable land-use practices. ​Despite these efforts, a significant climate finance gap persists.

Zambia’s overall need for climate finance is an estimated $50 billion through 2030, which is expected to be mobilized predominantly through new climate finance

mechanisms such as the Global Climate Fund and other climate-related bilateral, multilateral, and domestic financing. The Development Bank of Zambia also attained an accreditation by the Green Climate Fund to receive and submit proposals on behalf of developers of green projects.