Africa's Urban Adaptation Transition Under a 1.5° Climate

Authors

Mark Pelling, King's College London
Hayley Leck, King's College London
Lorena Pasquini, University of Cape Town
Idowu Ajibade, Portland State UniversityFollow
Emanuel Osuteye, University College London
Susan Parnell, University of Cape Town
Shuaib Lwasa, Makerere University
Cassidy Johnson, University College London
Arabella Fraser, Overseas Development Institute
Alejandro Barcena, King's College London
Soumana Boubacar, University Abdou Moumouni

Sponsor

This work was supported by the Belmont Forum project Transformation and Resilience on Urban Coasts (NE/L008971/1) and the UK Department for International Development and Economic and Social Research Council grant Urban Africa: Risk Knowledge (ES/L008777/1). Open Access funded by Economic and Social Research Council.

Published In

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2018

Subjects

Climatic changes -- Sub-Saharan Africa, Climate change mitigation -- Sub-Saharan Africa, Natural resources -- Sub-Saharan Africa -- Management, Environmental degradation -- Social aspects

Abstract

For cities in sub-Saharan Africa a 1.5 °C increase in global temperature will bring forward the urgency of meeting basic needs in sanitation, drinking water and land-tenure, and underlying governance weaknesses. The challenges of climate sensitive management are exacerbated by rapid population growth, deep and persistent poverty, a trend for resolving risk through relocation (often forced), and emerging new risks, often multi-hazard, for example heat stroke made worse by air pollution. Orienting risk management towards a developmental agenda can help. Transition is constrained by fragmented governance, donor priorities and inadequate monitoring of hazards, vulnerability and impacts. Opportunities arise where data and forecasting is present and through multi-level governance where civil society collaborates with city government.

Description

© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/).

DOI

10.1016/j.cosust.2017.11.005

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/23160

Citation Details

Pelling, M., Leck, H., Pasquini, L., Ajibade, I., Osuteye, E., Parnell, S., ... & Boubacar, S. (2018). Africa's urban adaptation transition under a 1.5° climate. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 31, 10-15.