From All Africa.

Despite contributing just 3.8 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, Africa with its economic dependence on agriculture will be increasingly vulnerable to climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Climate change is affecting water levels of major rivers and lakes in Africa, according to a report in All Africa. Climate change is expected to result in more severe droughts, floods and other extreme weather.

Nearly all impacts of climate change in Africa are intensified by inappropriate policy choices; often a short-sighted view of what is best for economic development, says the report in All Africa.

Estimates of the economic impact of climate change in Africa are hard to find, but the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change suggests that delaying response to climate change could result in losses of up to 20 percent of gross domestic product.

Climate change and economic development in Africa is the theme of the African Economic Research Consortium’s Biannual Research Workshop on June 2 in Tanzania.

Speakers will include economists, Adam Schlosser and Kenneth Strzepek of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Robert Mendelsohn of Yale University and Wisdom Akpalu of State University of New York.

Read more at All Africa.