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The double challenge of adapting to climate change while accelerating development in sub-Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2010

RASHID HASSAN
RASHID HASSAN*
Affiliation:
Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa (CEEPA), Room 2-6, Agricultural Annex, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa. Tel: +27-12-4203317. Fax: +27-12-4204958. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Accelerating economic growth and social development is necessary to reduce the vulnerability and enhance the adaptive capacity of sub-Saharan Africa to cope with the consequences of predicted unfavorable future climate. This requires major investments and policy reforms to induce a needed radical transformation of the way development is currently pursued to a more climate-sensitive path of low carbon growth. Key gaps in the current knowledge base that call for major investments and urgent attention include the ability to forecast more robust local future climate and to account for the uncertainties associated with climate risks for ecosystems' functions and probable nonconvexities in future impacts to project more plausible scenarios for future development in sub-Saharan Africa and provide better information on the costs and benefits of potential actions to avert the negative consequences of climate change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 15 , Issue 6: 15 YEARS OF EDE – ADVANCES AND CHALLENGES IN ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS , December 2010 , pp. 661 - 685
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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