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Abstract: The rich biodiversity of southern Africa has to date been relatively unimpacted by the activities of modern society, but to what degree will this situation persist into the 21st century? We use a leading global environmental assessment model (IMAGE) to explore future land use and climate change in southern Africa under the scenarios developed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. We assess the impacts on terrestrial biodiversity using the Biodiversity Intactness Index, which gives the average change in population size relative to the pre-modern state, across all terrestrial species of plants and vertebrates. Over the coming century, we project absolute declines in the average population sizes of these taxa that are two to three times greater than the reductions that have occurred since circa 1700. Our results highlight the immense challenges faced by efforts to reduce rates of biodiversity loss in southern Africa, even under relatively optimistic scenarios. These results stress the urgent need for better aligning biodiversity conservation and development priorities in the region. Furthermore, we suggest that context-sensitive conservation targets that account for the development imperatives in different parts of the region are needed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Aim Over the next 100 years, human-driven climate change and resulting changes in species occurrences will have global impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem function, and human health. Here we examine how climate change may affect the occurrences of tick species in Africa and alter the suitability of habitat outside Africa for African ticks. Location Africa and the world. Methods We predicted continental and global changes in habitat suitability for each of 73 African tick species, using multiple regression models in different climate change scenarios that cover a wide range of uncertainty. Results Global habitat suitability improves for nearly all tick species under each of a representative range of eight climate change scenarios. Depending on the scenario, African tick species experience an average increase in global habitat suitability of between 1 million and 9 million square kilometres between 1990 and 2100. Main conclusions The potential for successful translocations of ticks and their pathogens from Africa to the rest of the world is likely to increase over the next 100 years. Although the general trend is one of range expansion, there are winners and losers among tick species in each scenario, suggesting that tick community composition will be disrupted substantially by climate change. If this is also typical of other invertebrates, then climate change will disrupt not only the geographic location of communities but also their structure. Changes in tick communities are also likely to influence tick-borne pathogens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting access to modern energy forms in developing countries to replace traditional fuels is high on the political agenda. This paper describes the development and application of a global model for rural electrification. The model is used to assess future trends in electrification, and the associated investment needs. The model is applied for a set of electrification scenarios. We find that the trend in increasing electrification differs considerably among world regions: in Latin America and Asia access to electricity takes place at lower income levels than in Africa. Under business-as-usual developments, universal access to electricity is not reached by 2030 in Latin America, Asia or sub-Saharan Africa. Investments per household depend strongly on population density, implying relatively low costs in most Asian subregions. Global cumulative investments to reach universal access to electricity by 2030 amount 477–868 billion USD2005, which would be 238–400 billion additional to business-as-usual (or 12–20 billion USD2005 per year). The potential for mini-grid and off-grid technologies is expected to be high in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, and lower in Asia. This is a result of high costs of grid electrification at low population densities in large parts of rural Africa and Latin America. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]