(The Conversation) – African countries will suffer significant economic loss after 2050 if global warming is not limited to below 2°C, a new study by the Center for Global Development has found.

Environment and energy economist Philip Kofi Adom is the author of the report. He synchronised many years of research by climate change scientists and researchers and found that west and east Africa will fare worst. We asked him about his findings.

You found climate change will reduce Africa’s crop earnings by 30%. How will this affect people?

If climate change continues on its current trend, crop production in Africa will decline by 2.9% in 2030 and by 18% by 2050. About 200 million people risk suffering from extreme hunger by 2050. The crop revenue loss of approximately 30% will cause a rise in poverty of between 20% and 30% compared to a no-climate-change scenario.

How this will happen is that climate change will drive agricultural production down, so crop sales will suffer although scarcity will raise prices.

In Africa, 42.5% of the working class is employed in the agricultural sector. The incomes of those, mostly rural, workers will decline. Already, a higher share of people living in rural areas are poor and most impoverished people in Africa are concentrated in the rural areas. The decline of the agricultural sector is likely to push more people into severe poverty.

We will also face food security issues and those who work in the agricultural sector will face the risk of losing jobs. Rural farmers who rely only on rain and have no irrigation systems to grow their crops will suffer the most.

You project a long term Africa-wide gross domestic product (GDP) decline of 7.12%. What impact will this have?

When we speak of the long term, we are looking at 2050 and beyond. GDP tells us the wealth status of economies at any point in time. Through wealth creation, businesses emerge and jobs are created. Taxes collected pay for infrastructural investment, investment in social services and provision of social support like health insurance and unemployment insurance. With a 7.12% decline in GDP, these wealth creating potentials in the economy are going to be severely affected should climate change continue at the current pace.

“In East Africa climate change and increased food prices lead to extreme hunger” | Oxfam GB Video

Country-level projections have suggested much greater economic losses in GDP, ranging from 11.2% to 26.6% in the long term, in the most affected regions of Africa. When economies shrink in size, businesses could close down, certain jobs will be destroyed and new jobs will not be created.

For the people of Africa, this is very significant because it is predicted that in the coming years, the continent’s population will reach over 2 billion. The African population is the world’s most youthful. So if African economies shrink, where would those young people find their source of livelihood? That is a great concern.

50 million Africans are likely to be pushed into into water distress. What does this mean?

It means severe water shortages in homes and industries. For example, if you used to have access to water all day, you are going to have a much lower supply – a quantity so low that it does not meet your needs. This is a demand and supply issue. There will be higher demand for water resources but because of the short supply, water prices will shoot up. Going into the future, if nothing is done, water across Africa will be very expensive.

Can adaptation and mitigation help us avoid this disaster?

When we talk about climate change it is community or collective action. Obviously, governments are the big players. The government has to foster the change efforts that are required by supporting private initiatives in climate adaptation and mitigation – either directly or through incentive designs.

No attempts at adaptation and mitigation are too small. If these small efforts are coordinated, we can expect to see results. Individual households and individual businesses can do a lot. For example, people can cut down on the amount of meat and dairy eaten or change how transport is used – resorting to cycling, walking or public transport when possible. At home, energy saving practices can be adopted. And green spaces must be respected and protected.

People who use banks should ensure they conduct responsible investment. It is always important to know what kind of investment the bank is using money for. If it is not something that is climate friendly, customers and clients can speak about that.

Whatever the side effects will be, everyone will be at the receiving end. Everyone has a voice and it is important to use it on climate related issues.

What should African leaders be doing?

Climate change is an ongoing and impending environmental crisis. Luckily there is the chance to do something about it before the unthinkable happens. I urge African leaders to be very proactive in their climate change and mitigation efforts. The agricultural sector is the economic mainstay for most economies in Africa and climate change poses a grave danger to it. Climate change may create a state of perpetual economic distress if we fail to act now.

Philip Kofi Adom, Associate Professor, School of Economics and Finance, University of the Witwatersrand

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The World Meteorological Organization has declared the onset of the first El Niño event in seven years. It estimates 90% probability the climatic phenomenon, involving an unusual warming of the Pacific Ocean, will develop through 2023, and be of moderate strength.

El Niño events bring hotter, drier weather to places such as Brazil, Australia and Indonesia, increasing the risk of wildfires and drought. Elsewhere, such as Peru and Ecuador, it increases rain, leading to floods.

The effects are sometimes described as a preview of “the new normal” in the wake of human-forced climate change. Of particular concern is the effect on agricultural production, and thereby the price of food – particularly “breadbasket” staples such as wheat, maize and rice.

El Niño’s global impacts are complex and multifaceted. It can potentially impact the lives of the majority of the world’s population. This is especially true for poor and rural households, whose fates are intrinsically linked with climate and farming.

The global supply and prices of most food is unlikely to move that much. The evidence from the ten El Niño events in the past five decades suggests relatively modest, and to some extent ambiguous, global price impacts. While reducing crop yield on average, these events have not resulted in a “perfect storm” of the scale to induce global “breadbasket yield shocks”.

But local effects could be severe. Even a “moderate” El Niño may significantly affect crops grown in geographically concentrated regions — for example palm oil, which primarily comes from Indonesia and Malaysia.

In some places El Niño-induced food availability and affordability issues may well lead to serious social consequences, such as conflict and hunger.

Impact on global food prices

The following graph shows the correlation between El Niño events and global food prices, as measured by the United Nations’ Food Price Index. This index tracks monthly changes in international prices of a basket of food commodities.

Despite the general inflationary pattern, there have rarely been big swings in El Niño years. Indeed, it shows prices decreasing during the two strongest El Niño episodes of the past three decades.

Other human-caused factors were at play – notably the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, and the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-2008. In 2015, prices decreased due to stronger (than expected) supply and weaker demand, when the El Niño event did not turn out to be as bad as feared.

This all suggests that El Niño does not usually play the lead role in global commodity price movements.

Impacts on wheat supply

Why? Because El Niño does induce crop failures, but for food grown around the world the losses tend to be offset by positive changes in production across other key producing regions.

Image by Petra from Pixabay

For example, it can bring favourable weather to the conflict-ridden and famine-prone Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia).

A good example is wheat.

The following chart shows how El Nino has affected Australian wheat production since 1980. In six out of nine El Niño events of at least moderate strength, production has dropped significantly – in four cases, at least 30% below the “trend line” (representing the long-term average).

Australia is one of the world’s top three wheat exporters, accounting for about 13% of global exports. So its production does affect global wheat prices. But in terms of total wheat grown it’s less significant – about 3.5% of world production. And El Niño-induced crop failures tend to be offset by production in other key wheat-producing regions.

The next graph compare changes in Australia’s wheat production with other significant wheat exporters in El Niño years. Dips in Australia’s production tend tend to be offset by changes elsewhere.

In 1994, for example, Australian wheat production dropped nearly 50% but barely changed elsewhere. In 1982, when Australian production dropped 30%, Argentina’s production was 50% higher. Such balancing patterns tends to be present across most El Niño years.

But some will bear the cost

That said, there will be at least some negative effects. Even if crop failures in one region are fully offset by rich harvests in others, some people are going to bear the costs of El Niño’s direct impact.

Australian farmers, for example, will be worse off if local wheat yields drop while global prices remain relatively stable.

Moreover, because most countries are connected via trade, El Niño will have wider economic impacts. It could still lead to deeper societal issues in some region, such as famine and agro-pastoral conflicts.

These effects may also be nuanced. For example, poor harvests in Africa may mitigate seasonal violence linked with the appropriation of agricultural surpluses. But considering other vulnerabilities around the world, the odds are that even a moderate El Niño will make already dire socio-economic conditions in some countries worse.

Most of the usual warnings about the caveats of climate change apply here. The difference, of course, is that all this is happening now.

David Ubilava, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.