Study reveals potential consequences for water, energy, and food security in African river basins if global leaders are unable to coordinate climate change mitigation.
A careful coordination of global climate change mitigation policies is required to reduce unintended harmful local impacts to African river basins, a new study declares. The study published in Nature Climate Change, analysed an estimated 7,000 future scenarios involving global climate change and policies that mitigate climate change, as well as their local effects.
According to the study, increased vulnerabilities in African basins could occur as a result of policy fragmentation between developed and developing countries geared towards addressing carbon emissions from land-use adjustments.
“Our findings warn about the potential unintended consequences for water, energy, and food security in African river basins if global leaders fail to coordinate climate change mitigation,” explained Andrea Castelletti, a co-author of the study and head of the Environmental Intelligence Lab at Politecnico di Milano in Italy.
“We, therefore, stress the importance of connecting global climate change mitigation policies to local dynamics for a better exploration of the full range of possible future scenarios while supporting policymakers in prioritising sustainable mitigation and adaptation solutions,” added Castelletti.
African river basins climate report
The study centred its analysis on African river basins because while previous climate change mitigation studies have generally developed global or regional analyses, the measurement of local-scale impacts is often an overlooked aspect.
The research project considered the Zambezi watercourse as one of two case studies, the other being the Omo-Turkana basin on the border between Ethiopia and Kenya.
In experiments conducted between 2017 and 2020, researchers tested two land-use change (LUC) price regimes: a regionally differentiated and a globally uniform LUC price. In the regionally differentiated case, wealthy countries make strong attempts to curb LUC emissions, as indicated by a high LUC emissions price, while developing countries have limited LUC policies, which is represented by a lower LUC emissions price.
“Our results show that policy fragmentation between developed and developing countries in their approach to addressing carbon emissions from land-use changes can increase vulnerabilities in African basins. This is because fragmented policies could encourage proliferation of large-scale agricultural projects in Africa if land-use emissions are priced lower there,” Castelletti explained.
Increased agricultural land use
The study indicates that increased agricultural land use in the African river basins could lead to irrigation demands doubling under globally coordinated approaches that have been designed to curb carbon emissions. Such higher irrigation demands could negatively influence the availability of water resources for generating electricity, putting additional stress on African economies.
“Globally designed strategies should be reconsidered in the lights of unexpected and unintended local impact to foster a more sustainable transition to a decarbonised future,” Castelletti added.
Shem Wandiga, a professor of chemistry at the University of Nairobi’s Institute for Climate Change Adaptation, Kenya, said: “Policy fragmentation is a stumbling block to addressing carbon emissions from land-use changes and can increase vulnerabilities in African basins. Policy fragmentation brings omission and conflict in implementation.”
The outcome of the study, according to Wandiga, is significant to policymakers, development experts and the general population in Africa.
“It is of great importance to enable coherence of management,” Wandiga concluded. “Water is a disappearing commodity on the continent due to climatic change in almost all areas of the continent. Without water our survival is in danger.”
