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Climate change impacts: can Africa cope with the challenges?

Since the 1990s, scientists and policy makers alike have been focusing attention more closely on the meeting point between environment and development. There is little doubt today that human activities are contributing to environmental degradation on a global scale, seriously affecting the lives of billions of people world-wide. The ecological drama currently unfolding may take unpredictable dimensions. Among these is the possible accentuation of socio-economic disparities, particularly in the least developed countries, as the number of displaced people increases and economic migrants from the South flood to the North, exacerbating racial and xenophobic tensions. The determination of countries around the globe to take on the challenge of sustainable development is translated in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), by linking the issues of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and development. Scientific uncertainty regarding the scope, timing and magnitude of climate change still abounds. However, following a ‘no regrets’ (Catrinus and Munasinghe, 1998) policy the imperative to curb the trend of greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere and thus limit anthropogenic interference with the climate system, remains. At the same time, developing countries must be supported in exploring ways to achieve development objectives in a more sustainable manner. With the help of industrialised countries, developing countries should also start adopting environmentally sound policies that are compatible with their development needs, thus avoiding the mistakes of the past. International decisions on climate change will have far-reaching and long term effects on global economics, politics and international law, where many of the issues raised have never been confronted before. From a global perspective, the climate change issue is already a vital component of long term policy and planning. The approach taken by individual countries to address the problem and the extent of their involvement in the overarching decision-making framework will largely decide their place in the development of a global future. Since the majority of developing countries are highly vulnerable to the potential effects of a changing global climate, the climate change question has not been fully appreciated