The term climate change is used to denote any significant but extended change in the measures of climate. The changes could be due to natural variability or as a result of human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels to produce energy, deforestation, industrial processes, and some agricultural practices. Such activities release large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that hang like a blanket around the earth, thus trapping energy in the atmosphere and causing it to warm up. This results increasingly in climate variability, which is characterised by extreme seasonal, annual, temporal and non-spatial variability in temperature, vagaries of precipitation (rainfall patterns and amounts) and/or wind patterns occurring over a prolonged period of time. The last decade (2001 - 2010) has been the warmest on record; with the average temperatures reaching 0.46∞C, above the 1961 - 1990 mean, and 0.21∞C warmer than the 1991 - 2000 period. It has been proved that the African continent is warming up faster, all year-round, than the global avera≥ a trend that is likely to continue. By the year 2100, it is predicted that temperature changes will fall into ranges of about 1.4∞C to nearly 5.8∞C increase in mean surface temperature compared to 1990, and the mean sea level will rise between 10cm to 90 cm (AMCEN 2011). The interior of semiarid margins of the Sahara and central southern Africa will be the most affected by such warming (AMCEN 2011). To tackle the phenomenon of climate change effectively, human societies have put in place a combination of mitigation and adaptation mechanisms and strategies. Whereas mitigation aims at avoiding or lessening the impacts of the unmanageable, the goal of adaptation is to manage the unavoidable. That men and women are affected differently by climate change suggests that they also differ in terms of the adaptation mechanisms they employ. Despite the existence of gender-based differences in the effects of climate change and in adaptation and coping strategies, studies on the gender differential impacts of climate change and variability on women in general and pastoralist women in particular in sub-Saharan Africa are limited. This volume offers insights and knowledge that pastoralist women developed on climate change adaptation through their experiences in their households and communities and thereby tries to narrow this gap.

While global warming and its consequences on humanity are being fiercely debated at the global scale, deliberate and pragmatic reflections on the subject in Sub Sahara Africa remain muted. This book examines how global climate change impacts the area, the measures and strategies to face it and actions presently implemented in combating it.

This report focuses on the risks of climate change to development in Sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia and South Asia. Building on the 2012 report, Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided, this new scientific analysis examines the likely impacts of present day, 2°C and 4°C warming on agricultural production, water resources, and coastal vulnerability. It finds many significant climate and development impacts are already being felt in some regions, and that as warming increases from present day (0.8°C) to 2°C and 4°C, multiple threats of increasing extreme heat waves, sea-level rise, more severe storms, droughts and floods are expected to have further severe negative implications for the poorest and most vulnerable. The report finds that agricultural yields will be affected across the three regions, with repercussions for food security, economic growth, and poverty reduction. In addition, urban areas have been identified as new clusters of vulnerability with urban dwellers, particularly the urban poor, facing significant vulnerability to climate change. In Sub-Saharan Africa, under 3°C global warming, savannas are projected to decrease from their current levels to approximately one-seventh of total land area and threaten pastoral livelihoods. Under 4°C warming, total hyper-arid and arid areas are projected to expand by 10 percent. In South East Asia, under 2°C warming, heat extremes that are virtually absent today would cover nearly 60-70 percent of total land area in northern-hemisphere summer, adversely impacting ecosystems. Under 4°C warming, rural populations would face mounting pressures from sea-level rise, increased tropical cyclone intensity, storm surges, saltwater intrusions, and loss of marine ecosystem services. In South Asia, the potential sudden onset of disturbances to the monsoon system and rising peak temperatures would put water and food resources at severe risk. Well before 2°C warming occurs, substantial reductions in the frequency of low snow years is projected to cause substantial reductions in dry season flow, threatening agriculture. Many of the worst climate impacts could still be avoided by holding warming below 2°C, but the window for action is closing rapidly. Urgent action is also needed to build resilience to a rapidly warming world that will pose significant risks to agriculture, water resources, coastal infrastructure, and human health.

Fragile states in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) face challenges to respond to the effects of climate shocks and rising temperatures. Fragility is linked to structural weaknesses, government failure, and lack of institutional basic functions. Against this setup, climate change could add to risks. A panel fixed effects model (1980 to 2019) found that the effect of a 1◦C rise in temperature decreases income per capita growth in fragile states in SSA by 1.8 percentage points. Panel quantile regression models that account for unobserved individual heterogeneity and distributional heterogeneity, corroborate that the effects of higher temperature on income per capita growth are negative while the impact of income per capita growth on carbon emissions growth is heterogeneous, indicating that higher income per capita growth could help reduce carbon emissions growth for high-emitter countries. These findings tend to support the hypothesis behind the Environmental Kuznets Curve and the energy consumption growth literature, which postulates that as income increases, emissions increase pari passu until a threshold level of income where emissions start to decline.

In recent years, concerns about the outcomes and nature of economic growth have given way to a new emphasis on its quality. This volume brings together prominent international contributors to consider a range of interrelated questions concerning the quality of growth in Africa, with a primary focus on sub-Saharan countries. Contributors discuss the measurement of growth, the transformations necessary to sustain it, and issues around equity and well-being. They consider topics such as the distribution of income gains from growth; the extent to which economic growth has resulted in improvements in employment, poverty, and security; structural transformations of the economy and diversification of the sources of growth; environmental sustainability; and management of urbanization. Offering both diagnoses and prescriptions, The Quality of Growth in Africa helps envision a future that goes beyond increasing GDP to ensuring that growth translates into advancements in well-being. Although the book focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, much of the contributors’ incisive analysis has implications for countries outside the region.

While global warming and its consequences on humanity are being fiercely debated at the global scale, deliberate and pragmatic reflections on the subject in Sub Sahara Africa remain muted. This book examines how global climate change impacts the area, the measures and strategies to face it and actions presently implemented in combating it.