The Economic Cost of Climate Change in Africa
Practical Action Consulting advises African nations on Economics of Climate Change
On behalf of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), Christian Aid commissioned Practical Action Consulting (PAC) to consolidate the most up-to-date forecasting on the cost of climate change into a single report in order to inform the African nations ahead of the talks in Copenhagen. The report’s launch by Christian Aid at the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) meeting in October met widespread press coverage across Africa and beyond, including reference in The Guardian in the UK. Whether it can help to galvanise and strengthen the African nations’ position at Copenhagen to obtain fair and binding agreements remains in the balance.
PAC’s team was lead by Rebecca Clements of its Peru office and included Practical Action’s Rachel Berger as well as Paul Watkiss from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) as reviewers. SEI also supplied additional information through new integrated assessment modelling run specifically to provide evidence to cover the temperature rise scenarios that PACJA wished to understand.
The study looked at three scenarios of temperature increase above pre-industrial levels over the coming century, and their likely economic impacts:
• 4 degrees Celsius, viewed as a ‘business as usual’ scenario
• 2 degrees Celsius, in line with EU and G8 proposals
• 1.5 degrees Celsius, in line with the hopes of Less Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States
It is the latter that required additional modelling work to give clarity to predictions since this increase has been broadly ignored by previous research owing to the unlikelihood of the world’s nations being able to limit temperature rise to this.
The economic overview took in livelihood issues such as agriculture, health, biodiversity, water security and tourism, as well as costs of adaptation options, mitigation ambitions, and culminated in policy recommendations. Africa is already feeling the hard realities of climate change with extensive droughts having terrible impacts on nomadic agriculture and temperature rise allowing tsetse fly to breed and malaria to spread into areas not previously affected. Africa’s population contributes marginally to the production of greenhouse gases and yet it is being impacted far more harshly than the developed countries that as yet have barely checked their prolific release. As Africa includes some of the world’s poorest nations, its resilience to combat weather-related disasters and climatic uncertainty is far from strong.
The report clarifies available evidence and presents strong recommendations for compensation and for emissions targets from developed nations. It calls for:
• Emissions cuts by developed countries of 45% by 2020 and 85 to 95% by 2050 relative to pre-1990 levels
• Provision of adaptation funds of US$10 million per year immediately increasing to US$30 million by 2030
• Continued and improved modelling and forecasting specifically looking at Africa
On paper, these recommendations may appear to pinch into the developed nations’ pockets more than their level of comfort might allow. The contrasting outlook if these recommendations are not taken seriously – massive losses to biodiversity, agricultural production, availability of fresh water, infrastructure and homes in flood plains and close to sea level – by contrast border on apocalyptic. What remains to be seen in Copenhagen is whether the world has the stomach to listen, the courage to understand and the responsibility to react justly.
The full report is available to read here.
Sophie Peachey, Practical Action Consulting
