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 for affected populations. It finds many significant climate and development impacts are already being felt in some regions, and in some cases 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. Climate related extreme events could push households below the poverty trap threshold. High temperature extremes appear likely to affect yields of rice, wheat, maize and other important crops, adversely affecting food security. Promoting economic growth and the eradication of poverty and inequality will thus be an increasingly challenging task under future climate change.
This brief describes several ways that international cooperation can play a critical role in facilitating widespread innovation and implementation of new and appropriate green growth technologies. It outlines six existing institutional structures that have been invoked as possible examples for scaling up to foster green innovation more broadly and suggests several policy recommendations that are feasible in the near term.
This paper addresses the issues of urbanisation and green growth in Africa from the perspective of what it would take for African cities and countries to accommodate the upcoming urban explosion without the usual negative impact on the physical environment, and using it as an opportunity for innovative and green growth. The paper is organised in four parts. Part I reviews the performance of the African region, economic growth, urban expansion and the characteristics of the urbanisation process. Part II suggests a framework to discuss green growth at city level. It focuses on sectors normally under city responsibility (land, buildings, waste, urban transport) and reviews the use of public policies, including regulation, pricing, tax and investment criteria. Part III discusses combinations of policies for African cities at different stages of urbanisation and urban growth. Part IV summarises the key points for a forward-looking policy agenda. The reports draws on literature produced on Green Economy by UNEP, the World Bank, OECD, African Development Bank and provides relevant examples from Africa and cities in the world.
In the first post-transition decade after the fall of communism, Europe and Central Asia (ECA) moved its economy from plan to market. In the second decade, the 2000s, it moved from social division to inclusion. The region has an opportunity to use the third decade, the 2010s, to move from brown to green growth making production and consumption more sustainable, increasing quality of life, and reducing impacts on the climate. Lowering climate change risks in ECA will involve many different actions that fall broadly into three areas. Some, like energy efficiency improvements, are often economically beneficial regardless of climate concerns. Others, like creating a good business environment for green enterprises, are investments that create new growth opportunities. Finally, actions like expanding wind and solar energy will have net costs for some time but are essential to tackling climate change. A simple framework helps guide climate action. The priorities are to use energy more efficiently, use cleaner energy, and manage natural resources better.
China - and to some extent Brazil and India (BICs) - are staging a ”Great Convergence” in terms of industrial strength and incomes. This reverses the past two centuries of the Great Divergence, which has separated them from the West. In the process, the BICs are lifting millions of people out of poverty. But in the great transformation that lies ahead, there is a significant problem to contend with: the model of industrial capitalism that has served the West so well - and which has been held out as a model for the BICs as well - will not “scale” to lift vast new populations out of poverty. A new model of industrial capitalism has to be developed, and in some people’s eyes it is inconvenient that China is leading the way.