Environmental and Climate Change Issues in Africa

Africa’s environmental capital is an asset for African people. However, Africa’s ecological footprint is increasing and is close to exceeding the continent’s biocapacity. Therefore, shifting to “green growth” is an option to achieve sustainable development, and Africa is well placed to generate benefits from existing environmental capital and latecomer’s advantage. One challenge is how to realize the conversion of environmental capital value into economic value. The valuation of environmental goods and services is a challenge. However, Africa faces the risk of global environmental problems, such as climate change. Even though Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions are limited compared to developed countries and emerging economies, climate change may have a more severe impact. Although the scale and impact of climate change is uncertain, it will lead to the loss of accumulated developmental benefit for Africa. This issue has been long debated, but no best solution has been identified, so further studies are necessary.