scholarly journals What Justice? Whose justice?: Rethinking climate justice through climate change impacts and options for adaptation in Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 761-770
Author(s):  
Shingirai Stanely Mugambiwa

Climate change is considered a justice issue based on the causes of the phenomenon, its impacts and polices designed to manage it. Previous studies have revealed that Africa and the entire developing world contribute less to Green House Gas emissions (GHG) which is the leading cause of climate change, but they suffer the most from its consequences, whereas the first world, whose contribution to GHG is immense but the impact of the phenomenon to them is minimal. In this article, I made use of climate change impacts and adaptation options to scrutinise the concept of climate justice in Africa. The article sought to establish whether or not climate justice has a place on the African continent. To achieve that objective, I critically assessed climate change impacts and options for adaptation in various African countries vis-à-vis climate justice. The study found that climate justice is a farce for Africa because climate disruptions affect nations differently and adaptive capacities differ as well. It also emerged that climate change-based impacts in Africa largely affect women and poor people. Lastly, the desire for profit among developed countries and climate-based organisations deters the urgency for climate justice across the globe.

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 2342
Author(s):  
Wangang Liu ◽  
Yiping Chen ◽  
Xinhua He ◽  
Ping Mao ◽  
Hanwen Tian

Global food insecurity is becoming more severe under the threat of rising global carbon dioxide concentrations, increasing population, and shrinking farmlands and their degeneration. We acquired the ISI Web of Science platform for over 31 years (1988–2018) to review the research on how climate change impacts global food security, and then performed cluster analysis and research hotspot analysis with VosViewer software. We found there were two drawbacks that exist in the current research. Firstly, current field research data were defective because they were collected from various facilities and were hard to integrate. The other drawback is the representativeness of field research site selection as most studies were carried out in developed countries and very few in developing countries. Therefore, more attention should be paid to developing countries, especially some African and Asian countries. At the same time, new modified mathematical models should be utilized to process and integrate the data from various facilities and regions. Finally, we suggested that governments and organizations across the world should be united to wrestle with the impact of climate change on food security.


2019 ◽  
pp. 31-49
Author(s):  
Anna Sharova

Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is an official term applied within the United Nations to the countries with low living standards, weak economies, where people and resources are highly exposed to the vulnerability criterion of natural shocks. The African continent has the largest number of such states (33). Simultaneously, various sanctions are in force or imposed on a number of this category of African countries, both by the UN and states individually. This article examines in detail two country cases of applying international sanctions against least developed African countries: the DRC and Somalia. The analysis of the economic dynamics of these countries (as well as the CAR and Mali that are also LDCs and are subject to sanctions regimes) led to the conclusion that the effectiveness of sanctions imposed against these countries and targeted sanctions against members of their political elites is low. The negative effects associated with the implementation of the sanctions policy against these states are manifested mostly by a decrease in the volume of exports and a decrease in FDI inflows.


Author(s):  
Michel Bourban

In this paper, I discuss some of the human rights that are threatened by the impact of global warming and the problem of motivation to comply with the duties of climate justice. I explain in what sense human rights can be violated by climate change and try to show that there are not only moral reasons to address this problem, but also more prudential motives, which I refer to as quasi-moral and non-moral reasons. I also assess some implications of potentially catastrophic impacts driven by this ecological issue. My aim is to locate, by outlining a normative perspective based on sound empirical findings, urgent climate injustices, and explain why well-off citizens in developed countries have strong reasons to avert the potentially massive violation of the rights of present and future victims of climate change.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Fitri Amelina

AbstrakPerubahan iklim telah menjadi permasalahan global yang memberikan dampak pasti dan tidak terelakan lagi di tingkat regional maupun internasional. Meningginya permukaan air laut, mencairnya es di kutub, sampai kerugian ekonomi di wilayah Pasifik sebagaimana dilansir oleh Asian Development Bank di tahun 2013. Meningkatnya pemanasan global dan produksi gas rumah kaca memberikan ancaman tersendiri untuk pembangunan berkelanjutan. Adanya komitmen warga dunia dalam menjalin kerja sama guna menekan produksi gas rumah kaca dan menanggulangi dampak perubahan iklim dapat dilihat dari beberapa instrumen internasional terkait hal tersebut yang secara bertahap telah dihasilkan dan diemplementasikan. Adanya kerja sama dari negara-negara maju sebagai penyumbang gas emisi terbanyak dengan negara-negara berkembang seharusnya mampu menghasilkan kolaborasi yang cukup baik dalam upaya penanganan dampak perubahan iklim. Indonesia, dalam hal ini sesuai dengan prinsip common but differentiated responsibilities turut serta dalam upaya penanganan perubahan iklim dengan ratifikasi perjanjian internasional, implementasi melalui satuan petugas khusus di bidang perubahan iklim, dan penegakan hukum dalam upaya melestarikan lingkungan. AbstractClimate change has become a global problem and has certain and uninevitable impacts globally or internationally. Sea level rising, ice melting in the pole or even economic damages in Pacific region released by 2013 Asian Development Bank. Increasing of global warming and greenhouse gasses production provide a separate threat to sustainable development. The commitment of the worldwide community to cooperate in order to reduce the production of greenhouse gasses and mitigate the impact of climate change could be seen from several international instruments related to it has gradually produced and implemented. The cooperation of the developed countries as the largest contributor to the emissions and developing countries should be able to produce a pretty good collaboration in efforts to address climate change impacts. Indonesia, in this case in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities to participate in efforts to address climate change with the ratification of international treaties, the implementation through a special unit of officers in the field of climate change, and law enforcement in an effort to preserve the environment.


2010 ◽  
Vol 278 (1712) ◽  
pp. 1661-1669 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Alonso ◽  
Menno J. Bouma ◽  
Mercedes Pascual

Climate change impacts on malaria are typically assessed with scenarios for the long-term future. Here we focus instead on the recent past (1970–2003) to address whether warmer temperatures have already increased the incidence of malaria in a highland region of East Africa. Our analyses rely on a new coupled mosquito–human model of malaria, which we use to compare projected disease levels with and without the observed temperature trend. Predicted malaria cases exhibit a highly nonlinear response to warming, with a significant increase from the 1970s to the 1990s, although typical epidemic sizes are below those observed. These findings suggest that climate change has already played an important role in the exacerbation of malaria in this region. As the observed changes in malaria are even larger than those predicted by our model, other factors previously suggested to explain all of the increase in malaria may be enhancing the impact of climate change.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 856-883 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armand Viljoen ◽  
Andrea Saayman ◽  
Melville Saayman

The goal of this research was to investigate the determinants that influence foreign tourism arrivals to the African continent, firstly as a collective and secondly in different regions, with the aim to foster a greater understanding of how African countries and regions can grow their tourism economies. Using static and dynamic panel estimators, two key findings were identified from this research: (1) tourism to the continent is influenced by income in developed countries, prices, telecommunication infrastructure and geographical factors as well as conservation efforts and (2) the regions in Africa do not all react the same to changes in these factors.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mook Bangalore ◽  
Andrew Smith ◽  
Ted Veldkamp

Abstract. With 70 percent of its population living in coastal areas and low-lying deltas, Vietnam is highly exposed to riverine and coastal flooding. This paper examines the exposure of the population and poor people in particular to current and future flooding in Vietnam and specifically in Ho Chi Minh City, using new high-resolution flood hazard maps and spatial socioeconomic data. The national-level analysis finds that a third of today’s population is already exposed to a flood, which occurs once every 25 years, assuming no protection. For the same return period flood under current socioeconomic conditions, climate change may increase the number exposed to 38 to 46 percent of the population. Climate change impacts can make frequent events as important as rare ones: the estimates suggest a 25-year flood under future conditions can expose more people than a 200-year flood under current conditions. Although poor districts are not found to be more exposed to floods at the national level, the city-level analysis of Ho Chi Minh City provides evidence that slum areas are highly exposed. The results of this paper show the benefits of investing today in flood risk management, and can provide guidance as to where future investments may be targeted.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ricard ◽  
Philippe Lucas-Picher ◽  
François Anctil

Abstract. Statistical post-processing of climate model outputs is a common hydroclimatic modelling practice aiming to produce climate scenarios that better fit in-situ observations and to produce reliable stream flows forcing calibrated hydrologic models. Such practice is however criticized for disrupting the physical consistency between simulated climate variables and affecting the trends in climate change signals imbedded within raw climate simulations. It also requires abundant good-quality meteorological observations, which are not available for many regions in the world. A simplified hydroclimatic modelling workflow is proposed to quantify the impact of climate change on water discharge without resorting to meteorological observations, nor for statistical post-processing of climate model outputs, nor for calibrating hydrologic models. By combining asynchronous hydroclimatic modelling, an alternative framework designed to construct hydrologic scenarios without resorting to meteorological observations, and quantile perturbation applied to streamflow observations, the proposed workflow produces sound and plausible hydrologic scenarios considering: (1) they preserve trends and physical consistency between simulated climate variables, (2) are implemented from a modelling cascades despite observation scarcity, and (3) support the participation of end-users in producing and interpreting climate change impacts on water resources. The proposed modelling workflow is implemented over four subcatchments of the Chaudière River, Canada, using 9 North American CORDEX simulations and a pool of lumped conceptual hydrologic models. Forced with raw climate model outputs, hydrologic models are calibrated over the reference period according to a calibration metric designed to function with temporally uncorrelated observed and simulated streamflow values. Perturbation factors are defined by relating each simulated streamflow quantiles over both reference and future periods. Hydrologic scenarios are finally produced by applying perturbation factors to available streamflow observations.


Daedalus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 150 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Allen Isaacman ◽  
Muchaparara Musemwa

Abstract This essay explores the multiple ways in which the nexuses between water scarcity and climate change are socially and historically grounded in ordinary people's lived experiences and are embedded in specific fields of power. Here we specifically delineate four critical dimensions in which the water crises confronting the African continent in an age of climate change are clearly expressed: the increasing scarcity, privatization, and commodification of water in urban centers; the impact of large dams on the countryside; the health consequences of water shortages and how they, in turn, affect other aspects of people's experiences, sociopolitical dynamics, and well-being, broadly conceived; and water governance and the politics of water at the local, national, and transnational levels. These overarching themes form the collective basis for the host of essays in this volume that provide rich accounts of conflicts and struggles over water use and how these tensions have been mitigated.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document