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In a context marked by the intensification of climate change as well as an increase in the frequency and intensity of violent conflicts in Africa, this paper analyses the effects of vulnerability to climate change on conflict through the channel of migratory movements. Given the complex causal relationships between the variables, and to distinguish between their direct and indirect effects on conflicts, we employ structural equation modeling on a sample of 37 African countries observed between 1995 and 2017. The results show that vulnerability to climate change has both direct and indirect negative effects on internal conflict in Africa. An increase in vulnerability to climate change reduces the net stock of international migrants; while the net stock of migrants increases internal conflict. These effects are robust regardless of the components of the climate change vulnerability index considered and vary, however, according to the official language spoken and the level of development. In English-speaking and low-developing countries, the effects of climate change vulnerability on conflict remain negative, while in French- and Arabic-speaking as well as in more developed African countries, climate change vulnerability indirectly increases conflict through migration.In a given territory, the implementation of specific adaptation measures helps to reduce the level of vulnerability to climate change. Furthermore, the increase in conflicts caused by a reduction in vulnerability to climate change can be mitigated by a decrease in migratory movements through a better allocation of natural resources such as arable land and an increase in gross domestic product per capita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of global climate change, much hope is placed in technological progress's ability to address environmental problems. However, the persistence of technology inequality across countries undermines environmental technology innovation's contribution to environmental issues. In such a context, this paper introduces a new approach that combines Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with the Gini coefficient to gauge technology inequality. Additionally, decomposition analysis is adopted to identify the driving factors affecting technology diffusion. Empirically, the proposed approach is applied to 49 African countries from 2000 to 2017. The results of our study show that, although the unified efficiency of African countries improved slightly during the study period, there is still much room for improvement in terms of economic prosperity and environmental performance. Secondly, there is group heterogeneity between two groups of African countries (low-efficiency group and high-efficiency group) under both managerial and natural disposability. Thirdly, the inequality decomposition revealed that cross-group inequality is the source of group heterogeneity and the main barrier to technology diffusion, followed by within-group inequality. Finally, environmental technology progress exhibits a low contribution to enhancing sustainability in Africa due to technological inequality persistence. In future, it would be quite meaningful to perform sector-level analysis, which could provide more detailed information on sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change results from increasing national efforts of all countries to achieve higher economic growth. These efforts contribute to extravagant phenomena such as sea-level rise, global warming, and decreasing precipitation. The importance of climate change is measured by its impact on economic activities. Some regions, including the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA), are exposed to more severe climate change. Therefore, the effects of climate change on the economic growth of the MENA region countries are investigated in this study. Thus temperature and precipitation data plus economic growth of 14 MENA countries during 2000–2016 were used here. The Pedroni, Kao, and Westerlund cointegration tests confirmed existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship. This study employed panel data cointegration fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares models. The results indicate existence of a cointegrated long-term relationship between climate change and economic growth. The economic growth elasticity to climate change, gross fixed capital formation, population growth, and inflation are consistent with theoretical and empirical research types. Moreover, comparing the elasticity in both applied approaches shows that climate change variables have significant negative effects with the same results for both models. It implies that over the long term one percent increase in temperature and precipitation is associated with a 0.25 and 0.024 percentage decrease in economic growth (under the FMOLS model), respectively. Moreover, a one percent increase in temperature and precipitation over the long term is associated with a 0.28 and 0.005 percent decrease in economic growth (under the DOLS model), respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How farmers perceive climate change is linked to whether they are responding and adapting to it. However, often this perception does not correspond with what actually happens. Based on a search of empirical studies carried out in Africa and Asia, this paper analyzes two factors that can influence farmers' perception regarding climate change: expected utility maximization and availability heuristic. While expected utility maximization refers to an expected change in farmers' well-being, the availability heuristic is a mental shortcut based on the memory of occurrence of events. Generally, empirical studies show that farmers' perceptions are aligning with meteorological records regarding an increase in temperature. However, while there are no significant variations in rainfall trends, farmers perceive a reduction in rainfall in the last few years. The recent increase in drought frequency and severity may cause this divergence, because it affects farmers' well-being, and extreme droughts have a central position in peoples' memory. In this context, our findings suggest that farmers' perceptions are influenced by economic and psychological issues. Policymakers, extension workers and developers of climate projects need to pay attention to farm and farmers' characteristics in order to develop mitigation and/or adaptation practices regarding climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the effects of climate change on the African continent and suggests ways in which the negative effects of climate change can be effectively combatted to ensure sustainable development. Although responsible for a small share of global climate change, Africa is the most vulnerable region of the world to climate change, which destroys the people's source of food, medication, shelter, and income, leading to poor nutrition and exposure to infectious diseases, more hospitalizations, less working hours, and heavy financial losses. Apart from global environmental deterioration, Africa is one of the regions of the world experiencing the severest droughts and water scarcity. The impact of all this on Africa's already fragile socio-economic and political structures is grave. Climate change threatens the political stability of the continent. In this paper we argue that the effects of climate change on the continent have been amplified by human choices and political ineptitude of the ruling elites in Africa. We maintain that good governance, the promotion of African traditional values that encourage the protection of the environment, paying attention to rural development and the emancipation of women economically and politically, and investing in alternative and renewable energy are the necessary pre-conditions for effectively mitigating the effects of climate change and ensuring sustainable development in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of multiple stressors in Africa often focus on vulnerable inland communities. Rising concentrations of the world’s poor live in coastal rural–urban areas with direct dependencies on marine as well as terrestrial ecosystem goods and services. Using participatory methods we elicited perceptions of stressors and their sources, impacts and consequences held by coastal communities in eastern Africa (Mtwara in Tanzania and Maputo in Mozambique). Respondent-informed timelines suggest wars, economic policies and natural increase have led to natural resource-dependent populations in marginal, previously little-inhabited lowland coastal areas. Respondents ( n = 91) in interviews and focus groups rank climate stressors (temperature rise/erratic rain) highest amongst human/natural stressors having negative impacts on livelihoods and wellbeing (e.g., cross-scale cost of living increases including food and fuel prices). Sources of stress and impacts were mixed in time and space, complicating objective identification of causal chains. Some appeared to be specific to coastal areas. Respondents reported farms failing and rising dependence on stressed marine resources, food and fuel prices and related dependence on traders and credit shrunk by negative global market trends. Development in the guise of tourism and conservation projects limited access to land–sea livelihoods and resources in rural–urban areas (coastal squeeze). Mental modelling clarified resource user perceptions of complex linkages from local to international levels. We underline risks of the poor in marginal coastal areas facing double or multiple exposures to multiple stressors, with climate variability suggesting the risks of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]