climate change and africa - cambridge university...

Climate Change and Africa

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, no environmentalissue is of such truly global magnitude as the issue of cli-mate change. The poorer, developing countries are the leastequipped to adapt to the potential effects of climate change,althoughmost of themhave played an insignificant role in caus-ing it;African countries are amongst the poorest of the develop-ing countries. This book presents the issues of most relevanceto Africa, such as past and present climate, desertification,biomass burning and its implications for atmospheric chem-istry and climate, energy generation, sea-level rise, ENSO-induced drought and flood, adaptation, disaster risk reduction,the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol (especially the Clean Devel-opmentMechanism), capacity-building, and sustainable devel-opment. It provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review ofthese and many other issues, with chapters by the leading ex-perts from a range of disciplines. Climate Change and Africawill prove an invaluable reference for all researchers and policymakers with an interest in climate change and Africa.

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CLIMATE CHANGEAND AFRICA

PA K S U M L OW






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The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do notimply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory,city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers orboundaries. The designations “developed” and “developing” economies are intended forstatistical convenience and do not necessarily express a judgement about the stage reachedby a particular country, country territory or area in the development process. The viewsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Foodand Agriculture Organization of the United Nations nor of their affiliated organization(s).






This book is dedicated to the late Professor David O. Hall

and the late Dr Ruben O. Agwanda, and to all those who

love Africa and its people.






Contents

Notes on contributors page ixPeer reviewers xixEditor’s note

Pak Sum Low xxiForewords

Mostafa K. Tolba xxvMichael Zammit Cutajar xxviMikko Pyhala xxviiDieter H. Ehhalt xxviii

PrefacesGodwin O. P. Obasi xxixWulf Killmann xxxiSalvano Briceno xxxiiHassan Virji xxxiii

List of abbreviations xxxivList of SI prefixes xxxixList of unit abbreviations xlList of chemical formulae xli

Part I Science

1 Holocene climatic, hydrological and environmentaloscillations in the tropics with special re ferenceto Africa 3

Eric Odada and Daniel Olago

2 The relative importance of the different forcingson the environment in Ethiopia during theHolocene 23

Mohammed U. Mohammed

3 Global warming and African climate change:a reassessment 29

Mike Hulme, Ruth Doherty, Todd Ngaraand Mark New

4 Interactions of desertification and climate inAfrica 41

Robert C. Balling, Jr.

5 Africa’s climate observed: perspectives onmonitoring and management of floods,drought, and desertification page 50

David A. Hastings

6 Atmospheric chemistry in the tropics 60

Guy Brasseur, Alex Guenther and Larry Horowitz

7 Natural and human-induced biomass burning inAfrica: an important source for volatile organiccompounds in the troposphere 69

Ralf Koppmann, Kristin von Czapiewski andMichael Komenda

8 Biomass burning in Africa: role in atmosphericchange and opportunities for emission mitigation 79

Evans Kituyi, Shem O. Wandiga, Meinrat O.Andreae and Gunter Helas

9 Soil micro-organisms as controllers of trace gasemissions over southern Africa 90

Luanne B. Otter and Mary C. Scholes

Part II Sustainable energy development,mitigation and policy

10 Biomass energy in sub-Saharan Africa 107

David O. Hall and J. Ivan Scrase

11 Natural resources: population growth andsustainable development in Africa 113

Keith Openshaw

12 Sustainable energy development and the CleanDevelopment Mechanism: African priorities 124

Randall Spalding-Fecher and Gillian Simmonds

vii






viii CONTENTS

13 Opportunities for clean energy in the SADCunder the UNFCCC: the case for the electricityand transport sectors 136

Peter P. Zhou

14 Regional approaches to global climate changepolicy in sub-Saharan Africa 150

Ian H. Rowlands

15 Energy for development: solar home systemsin Africa and global carbon emissions 163

Richard D. Duke and Daniel M. Kammen

16 Climate change in sub-Saharan Africa:assumptions, realities and future investments 172

Christopher O. Justice, David Wilkie, FrancisE. Putz and Jake Brunner

17 Climate-friendly energy policies for Egypt’ssustainable development 182

Ibrahim Abdel Gelil

Part III Vulnerability and adaptation

18 Potential impacts of sea-level rise onpopulations and agriculture 191

Rene Gommes, Jacques du Guerny, Freddy O.Nachtergaele and Robert Brinkman

19 Sea-level rise and coastal biodiversity inWest Africa: a case study from Ghana 204

Ayaa Kojo Armah, George Wiafe andDavid G. Kpelle

20 The impacts of ENSO in Africa 218

Godwin O. P. Obasi

21 Climate policy implications of the recentENSO events in a small island context 231

Rolph Antoine Payet

22 El Nino causes dramatic outbreak ofPaederus dermatitis in East Africa 240

Ingeborg M. C. J. van Schayk, Ruben O.Agwanda, John I. Githure, John C. Beierand Bart G. J. Knols

23 The role of indigenous plants in householdadaptation to climate change: the Kenyanexperience 248

Siri Eriksen

24 Requirements for integrated assessmentmodelling at the regional and national levelsin Africa to address climate change 260

Paul V. Desanker, Christopher O. Justice,Gray Munthali and Kennedy Masamvu

25 Climate and disaster risk reduction in Africa 271

Reid Basher and Salvano Briceno

Part IV Capacity-building

26 Climate change mitigation analysis in southernAfrican countries: capacity enhancement inBotswana, Tanzania and Zambia 287

Gordon A. Mackenzie

27 Capacity-building initiatives to implementthe climate change convention in Africa 297

George Manful

28 Education and public awareness:foundations of energy efficiency 310

John J. Todd

Part V Lessons from the Montreal Protocol

29 Lessons for developing countries fromthe ozone agreements 319

K. Madhava Sarma

30 Opportunities for Africa to integrate climateprotection in economic development policy 326

Stephen O. Andersen

31 Ozone depletion and global climatechange: is the Montreal Protocol a goodmodel for responding to climate change? 331

Robert A. Reinstein

Index 339






Notes on contributors

EDITOR

Dr Pak Sum Low has been the Regional Adviser on Environ-ment and Sustainable Development at United Nations Economicand Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)since June 2001. He has previously worked in the United Na-tions Environment Programme (1991–1999); Climatic ResearchUnit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East An-glia, Norwich, UK (1988–1991); Institute of Applied PhysicalChemistry (1987–1988) and Institute for Atmospheric Chem-istry (1986–1987), Julich Nuclear Research Centre, Germany. Hewas also a consultant for the secretariats of the United NationsFramework Convention on Climate Change (1999–2000) and theUnited Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (2000).First trained as a chemical engineer at the University of Canter-bury, New Zealand, in the early 1970s, Dr Low later specializedin environmental studies, focusing on atmospheric research, andcompleted aMasters at the University of Adelaide, Australia and aPh.D. at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He has travelledextensively within Africa and Asia and the Pacific.

CONTRIBUTORS OF FOREWORDS

Dr Mostafa Kamal Tolba, Former Executive Director, UnitedNations Environment Programme (UNEP) (1976–1992), and cur-rently President, International Centre for Environment and De-velopment (Geneva and Cairo). Professor of Microbiology, CairoUniversity. Dr Tolba is the recipient of honorary degrees fromseveral universities around the world. He holds a special B.Sc.degree in Botany and a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology. He is the authorof almost 100 papers (1950–1973) on plant diseases, anti-fungalsubstances and the physiology of micro-organisms, and of morethan 600 statements and numerous books and articles on environ-ment and sustainable development.

Ambassador Michael Zammit CutajarwasExecutive Secretaryof the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Conventionon Climate Change (UNFCCC) based in Bonn, Germany until his

retirement in January 2002. The UNFCCC secretariat providessubstantive and technical support and advice to the intergovern-mental negotiations within the scope of the Convention, includingthose on itsKyotoProtocol.AcitizenofMalta, born1940,MichaelZammit Cutajar devoted a large part of his career to work in andaround the United Nations on international cooperation for devel-opment and environment. He undertook several assignments withUNCTAD and was part of the founding secretariat of UNEP. Heworked with NGOs in his early and middle career. He currentlycontributes to discussions on the evolving global strategy to com-bat climate change, chairs theAdvisoryGroupof theWorldBank’sCommunity Development Carbon Fund and advises the Govern-ment of Malta as its Ambassador for International EnvironmentalAffairs.

Ambassador Mikko Pyhala (b. 1945) has been in the diplomaticservice of Finland since 1972. His posts include Peru, Pakistan,India, Italy, Mexico and Czechoslovakia. He was with theUnitedNations Environment Programme (1991–1995) as Chief ofClearing-house Unit, Chief of GEF-Unit and Secretary to the Sci-entific and Technical Advisory Panel to theGEF. He has publishedbooks and reports on environment and development. AmbassadorPyhala received the Finlandia Award for best non-fiction book1992 for Amazonia (co-authored with Dr Jukka Salo), and Peru’sNational Biodiversity Award 2002. He was conferred Dr.h.c. bythe National Amazonian University of Peru.

Professor Dieter H. Ehhalt was Director of the Institute for At-mospheric Chemistry at the Research Centre in Julich and Profes-sor of Geophysics at theUniversity of Cologne, Germany, until hisretirement in August 2000. He is a Fellow of the American Geo-physical Union and a member of the Academia Europaea. Hiscurrent research interests are atmospheric chemistry and physics.On these and related subjects he has published over 250 arti-cles. He was Coordinating Lead Author for the chapter ‘Atmo-spheric chemistry and greenhouse gases’ in the Third AssessmentReport of the IPCC (2001), as well as Lead Author for the ear-lier Assessment Report (1995). From 1995 to 1997 he served as

ix






x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Vice Chairman of IPCCWorking Group I. From 1983 to 2002 hewas co-editor of the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry.

CONTRIBUTORS OF PREFACES

Professor Godwin Olu Patrick Obasi, aNigerian,wasSecretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization from January1984 to December 2003. He holds a B.Sc. Honours in Math-ematics and Physics (1959) from McGill University, Montreal,Canada, an M.Sc. (1960) and a D.Sc. (1963) in Meteorology bothfrom the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and wonthe Carl Rossby Award for the best doctoral thesis. He was Deanof the Faculty of Science, Professor ofMeteorology andChairmanof the Department of Meteorology at the University of Nairobi,Kenya (1967–1976). Professor Obasi has published several sci-entific articles and has been Consulting Editor to many journals.He is currently Vice-President of the Third World Academy ofSciences, and a fellow or honorary member of many meteoro-logical/hydrological professional societies. He has been awardeduniversity honorary degrees and honoured by several academiesof sciences and governments. He has been at the forefront to drawthe world’s attention on the issue of climate change and con-tributed to initiation of several multilateral environmental agree-ments. He initiated the establishment of the African Centre ofMeteorological Applications for Development in Niamey, Niger;the Drought Monitoring Centres in Nairobi, Kenya and Harare,Zimbabwe; and theASEANSpecializedMeteorological Centre inSingapore.

Dr Wulf Killmann holds anM.Sc. and a Ph.D. inWood Technol-ogy, both from theUniversity of Hamburg, Germany. After havingstarted his professional career in Germany, he worked for 20 yearsin Development Cooperation in Africa, Asia and Latin America,mostly for the German Agency of Technical Cooperation. Fol-lowing assignments in Liberia, the Philippines and Pakistan, hebuilt up Forestry Cooperation Programmes in Malaysia, and lateron in Honduras. Since 1999 Dr Killmann has held the position ofDirector, Forest Products and Economics Division with the Foodand Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Since 2001he has been the Chair of FAO’s Interdepartmental Working Groupon Climate Change.

Dr Salvano Briceno is the Director of the Geneva-based Sec-retariat of the United Nations International Strategy for DisasterReduction (ISDR). A Venezuelan, he has a Doctorate in PublicLaw from the University of Paris II (Pantheon-Sorbonne) and aMaster of Public Management from Harvard University. His pro-fessional career has focused on public policy and managementof international programmes in fields related to environment, cli-mate, disaster reduction, and sustainable development. His roleshave included Director General responsible for environmental

education, professional development and international relations inthe Ministry of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources,Venezuela; Executive Officer of IUCN’s Commission on Educa-tion, where he worked on environmental education programmesand coordinated a worldwide network of experts; Coordina-tor of UNEP’s Caribbean Environment Programme at Kingston,Jamaica, where he collaborated closely with the Pan-CaribbeanDisaster Preparedness andPreventionProgramme (PCDPPP);Co-ordinator of the BIOTRADE and GHG Emissions Trading Initia-tives at UNCTAD; Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Con-vention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD); and Coordinator ofIntergovernmental and Institutional Support at the Secretariat ofthe UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)where he was responsible for assisting the Executive Secretarywith management, legal, information support, external relationsand interagency relations.

Dr Hassan Virji is DeputyDirector forGlobal Change System forAnalysis, Research and Training (START), an organization thatis co-sponsored by the Earth System Science partnership com-prising the major international research programmes on globalenvironmental change (IHDP, IGBP, WCRP and DIVERSITAS).Prior to his current position, he served as the Executive Secre-tary of the US Interagency Subcommittee on Global Change Re-search while based at the US National Science Foundation, asthe Deputy Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme based at the Royal Swedish Academy ofSciences in Stockholm, and as the Associate Programme Directorfor the Climate Dynamics Programme of the USNational ScienceFoundation. He has also held academic and research faculty posi-tions at the University of Nairobi and the University ofWisconsin.Dr Virji holds a Ph.D. degree in Meteorology from the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison, USA.

CONTRIBUTORS OF CHAPTERS

Dr Ibrahim Abdel Gelil is currently a professor of the academicchair of H H Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and Direc-tor, Environmental Management Programme, Arabian Gulf Uni-versity, Bahrain. He was the CEO ( 1997–2002) of the EgyptianEnvironmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), and the chairman (1994–1997) of the Egyptian Organization for Energy Planning (OEP),the Government of Egypt’s agency responsible for energy policyplanning and analysis and promotion of energy efficiency. In addi-tion, he is a board member of many national Committees, includ-ing theWorld Energy Council, the National Specialized Councils,the National Council of Natural Resources and Environment, theEgyptian Academy for Science and Technology. He has authoredand co-authored more than 50 publications that were publishednationally and internationally.






CONTRIBUTORS OF CHAPTERS xi

Dr Reuben Agwanda (1956–2001) obtained his Ph.D. in Statis-tics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,UK, in 1998. He joined the Kenya Medical Research Institute(KEMRI) in 1981, where he rose through the ranks to becomea Senior Research Officer. He facilitated several training courseson statistics and the use of microcomputers for health researchand data analysis organized byWHO and the International Devel-opment Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada. He published over15 articles in medical journals.

Dr Stephen O Andersen is currently the Director of StrategicProjects in the USEPA Climate Protection Partnerships Divisionand Co-Chair of theMontreal Protocol Technology and EconomicAssessment Panel. He has been Deputy Director of the USEPAStratospheric Protection Division where he specialized in indus-try partnerships, international cooperation, and market incentives.Earlier he was Professor of Environmental Economics at the Col-lege of the Atlantic and the University of Hawaii and a visitingscholar in Kyoto University. He also worked for consumer, envi-ronmental and legal NGOs. He received his Ph.D. from the Uni-versity of California, Berkeley. He co-authored with K. MadhavaSarma a book on Protecting the Ozone Layer: The United Na-tionsHistory (2002), andwithDurwoodZaelke a book on IndustryGenius: Inventions and People Protecting the Climate and FragileOzone Layer (2003).

Professor Meinrat O. Andreae leads the Biogeochemistry De-partment of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz,Germany. His scientific interests include biogeochemistry, at-mospheric chemistry, chemical oceanography, biomass burning,chemistry/climate interactions and the sulphur cycle. Much of hisgroup’s research work is being undertaken in the course of fieldcampaigns in Amazonia, Africa, the boreal region (e.g., Siberia),and South-East Asia. His research group is investigating the roleof fire in ecology; climate and atmospheric chemistry; and the ex-change of trace gases in the soil–plant–atmosphere system. Theseresearch activities are closely tied to the IGBP, and they involveextensive international collaboration.

Ayaa Kojo Armah holdsMasters degrees inMarineBiology fromthe University of Ghana and in Coastal Management from theUniversity of Newcastle. Currently he is a Senior Lecturer in theDepartment of Oceanography and Fisheries in the University ofGhana. He has published over 25 articles and three books:CoastalZone Profile of Ghana (1998); Save Sea Turtles – A Primer for SeaTurtle Conservation for Coastal Communities in Ghana (1997);and The Coastal Zone of West Africa: Problems and Management(1997). He has served as a consultant for UNIDO, IOC-UNESCOand UNEP.

Dr Robert C. Balling, Jr. is currently the Director of the Officeof Climatology and Professor in the Department of Geography at

Arizona State University. He has published over 100 articles in theprofessional scientific literature, and served as a consultant to theUnited Nations Environment Programme and theWorldMeteoro-logical Organization. He has published three books: The HeatedDebate: Greenhouse Predictions Versus Climate Reality (1992);Interactions of Desertification and Climate (1996); and The Sa-tanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming (2000).

Dr Reid Basher is a senior officer at the UN Secretariat for the In-ternational Strategy forDisaster Reduction (UN/ISDR), and headsits Platform for the Promotion of EarlyWarning (PPEW) in Bonn,Germany, and Director Applications Research at the InternationalResearch Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI), New York. Hisinterests lie in the interplay between the science, policy and appli-cations practice of climate risk, encompassing climate change, themanagement of seasonal variability, and the issues of extremes ofclimate and disasters. As Director of Applications Research at theInternational Research Institute (IRI) for Climate Prediction, NewYork, from 1999 to 2003, he managed substantial USAID-fundedprojects on climate impacts reduction in Africa. A New Zealandcitizen, he has been responsible for a broad range of climate re-search and applications work in New Zealand, including publicand commercial climate services and the direction of the nationalcooperative climate network and national climate database. DrBasher’s qualifications include a Diploma of Business Adminis-tration in addition to science degrees. He worked in Fiji for twoyears, developed a seasonal outlook scheme for tropical cyclonesin the South Pacific islands, and was an active participant in andconsultant to activities of the South Pacific Regional Environmen-tal Programme (SPREP). He has been a Lead Author in impactsreports of the Intergovernmental Panel onClimateChange (IPCC),and Chair of the Working Group on Climate Data of the WorldMeteorological Organization (WMO).

Dr John C. Beier is a tenured Professor in the Department of Epi-demiology and Public Health at the University of Miami Schoolof Medicine. He is the Director of the Global Public Health Pro-gramme at the University of Miami. He was formerly a Professorin the Department of Tropical Medicine, School of Public HealthandTropicalMedicine, TulaneUniversity.DrBeier received train-ing inmedical entomology from the JohnsHopkinsUniversity andthe University of Notre Dame. He has published over 150 papersand book chapters in the areas of mosquito ecology and malariatransmission dynamics. He directs programmes on mosquito bi-ology and malaria control in several countries in Africa.

Dr Guy Brasseur is Director of the Department of Biogeochem-ical Systems at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology inHamburg, Germany; Scientific Director of the German ClimateComputer Centre; Chair of the Scientific Committee of IGBP;as well as a member of the International Academy for Astro-nautics and Aeronautics, and the Academia Europaea. He was






xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

previously Senior Scientist and Director of the AtmosphericChemistry Division, NCAR at Boulder, Colorado (1988–99). Hismajor areas of scientific interest are atmospheric chemistry, aeron-omy, ozone depletion and climate change, with specific interestin the development of Earth system models. He has authoredover 130 peer-reviewed publications, and numerous book chap-ters and other reports, and co-authored (with Susan Solomon) abook entitledAeronomyof theMiddleAtmosphere (Kluwer, 1986).Dr Brasseur served (with J. Orlando and G. Tyndall) as editor ofAtmospheric Chemistry and Global Change (Oxford UniversityPress, 1999). He was Editor-in-Chief for Journal of Geophysi-cal Research – Atmospheres (1992–1996). He won the NCAROutstanding Publication Award (1996), and the European Physi-cal Society Award for outstanding contributions in environmentalphysics (2002).

Dr Salvano Briceno (see above)

Dr Robert Brinkman retired from FAO in 1998. He served FAOas a field expert 1961–1971, and from 1987 as Chief, Soils Ser-vice and Director, Land andWater Development Division. He ob-tained a Ph.D. in soil science at Wageningen Agricultural Univer-sity, where he taught from 1971 to 1987, interrupted by Advisorywork for the World Bank, FAO and the Netherlands Ministry ofDevelopment Cooperation. He has published over 100 scientificpapers and handbook chapters.

Jake Brunner is Senior Director for Mainland Asia at Conserva-tion International (CI), a biodiversity conservation group based inWashington, DC. Prior to joining CI, he was a senior associate atthe World Resources Institute, where he managed research pro-grammes in South-EastAsia andWest andCentralAfrica on forestand water resources management. His research interests includethe impact of governance on natural resources management, andthe application of GIS and remote sensing for environmental pol-icy analysis. Jake Brunner was educated at Oxford University andImperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK.

Dr Paul V. Desanker isAssociate Professor ofGeography andAs-sociate Director for Research for the Alliance for Earth Sciences,Engineering and Development in Africa (AESEDA) at Pennsyl-vania State University, USA. He was formerly Research AssistantProfessor in theDepartment of Environmental Science,Universityof Virginia. He was a member of the IPCC Task Group on ClimateImpact Assessment (TGCIA) and now serves on the UNFCCCLeast-Developed Country Expert Group and on the Afforestation-Reforestation Working Group of the Clean Development Mecha-nism (CDM)ExecutiveBoard.Hewas theConveningLeadAuthorfor the chapter on Africa in the IPCC Third Assessment Report,and the editor of a special issue on African climate change in Cli-mate Research (Volume 18, Special 8, August 2001). His otherresearch covers theMiombo ecosystem and the region of southern

Africa, including the study of land-use change, carbon accounting,and impacts of, and adaptation to, climate change. He is the coor-dinator of the IGBP/START/LUCC Miombo Network, as well asthe Miombo GOFC/GOLD pilot project.

Dr Ruth Doherty is currently a Research Fellow at the Insti-tute of Atmospheric and Environmental Science, School of Geo-Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She has previouslyworked in the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group at theNational Centre for Atmospheric Research, Colorado, USA, andin the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia,UK. Her main research interests are in climate change and cli-mate variability, both over the twentieth century and in futurescenarios as simulated by Global ClimateModels. She has a num-ber of publications in this area. She is also interested in climate/land-surface/chemistry interactions.

Dr Richard D. Duke is a consultant with McKinsey & Com-pany, USA. His dissertation developed an economic rationale forgovernment ‘buydowns’ of emerging clean energy technologiesbased on spillover of learning-by-doing. His publications includevarious empirical and theoretical analyses of solar home systemsmarkets, an examination of the economics of market transforma-tion programmes, and a techno-economic assessment of the gov-ernment policies necessary to catalyse markets for grid-connectedresidential photovoltaics. He also produced a documentary (view-able atwww.princeton.edu/duke) on rural energy services deliveryin Kenya and South Africa.

Dr Siri H. Eriksen is currently a Senior Research Fellow at theCentre for International Climate and Environmental Research inOslo, Norway, and a Visiting Fellow at the Climatic ResearchUnit, University of East Anglia, UK. She has published on topicsregarding environmental change and local vulnerability in Africa,including Transport and GHG emissions (1995); Land TenureandWildlife Management (1996); and Linkages between ClimateChange and Desertification in East Africa (2001). She completeda Ph.D. thesis onResponding toGlobal Change: Vulnerability andManagement of Local Agro-ecosystems in Kenya and Tanzania in2000.

Dr John I. Githure received his Ph.D. in parasitology from theUniversity ofNairobi in 1989.He is theHead of theHumanHealthDivision at the International Centre of Insect Physiology andEcol-ogy (ICIPE) and Chief Research Officer at Kenya Medical Re-search Institute (KEMRI), both in Nairobi. He has many years ofexperience in coordinating and managing research projects andorganizing meetings and training courses. He has had a long anddistinguished career inmalaria and leishmaniasis research and hasperformed assignments as a malaria expert with many organiza-tions, including WHO, the World Bank, the European Union andUSAID. He has over 70 publications in peer reviewed journals.






CONTRIBUTORS OF CHAPTERS xiii

Dr Rene Gommes coordinates the activities of the Agrometeo-rology Group in the Environment and Natural Resources Serviceof FAO. Although his basic training is in biogeochemistry andplant ecology, he spent most of his career in WMO and FAO as anagricultural climatologist. His main professional interests includeagro-climatic risk assessments, the impact of extreme geophysicalfactors on food security, and the development of operational toolsfor agrometeorologists in developing countries. He has worked inabout 40 countries.

Dr Alex Guenther is a senior scientist and the head of the Biogeo-chemistry Section of the Atmospheric Chemistry Division of theNational Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado,USA. He has been investigating the biosphere–atmosphere ex-change of trace gases for nearly 20 years and has led field in-vestigations in Africa and four other continents using enclosures,above-canopy towers, tethered balloons and aircraft. Volatile or-ganic compound emissions from vegetation have been a topic ofparticular interest for him and his algorithms describing the re-sponse of these emissions to changing environmental conditionsare widely used in regional air quality models and global chem-istry simulations.

Jacques du Guerny is a demographer. He started his career inpublic health research, then joined the United Nations popula-tion research and programmes specializing on Asian and Africanproblems. As the former chief of the FAO Population ProgrammeService, he focused on inter-relations between demographic fac-tors, food requirements and environmental issues, as well as onlinkages between agriculture and the HIV/AIDS epidemics. He ispresently retired in Provence, France.

Professor David Oakley Hall (1935–1999) studied at the Uni-versities of Natal and California, before completing his Ph.D. onphotosynthesis at UC Berkeley. In 1964 David began 35 yearsof research and teaching work at King’s College London, wherehe developed the undergraduate course in Cell Biology, and su-pervised the formation of the School of Biological Sciences. Hisresearch and organizational skills ranged from laboratory workto initiating international committees, and to training a world-wide network of researchers with skills in field measurement andanalysis of photosynthesis for UNEP. In later life he focused onphotosynthesis as a source of sustainable energy and food for theworld, and became an enthusiastic ambassador for the merits ofbiomass energy. He founded and edited the journal Biomass andBioenergy, published more than 400 articles, was the author of12 books, and 19 students obtained doctorates under his supervi-sion. He is remembered with warmth, admiration and respect byall who worked and studied with him.

Dr David A. Hastings has been Scientific Affairs Officer for theUnitedNationsEconomic andSocialCommission forAsia and the

Pacific, in Bangkok, since April 2002. Prior to that he lectured atKwameNkrumahUniversity of Science andTechnology (Kumasi,Ghana) and Michigan Technological University (USA); workedfor the Ghana Geological Survey as Senior Geophysicist and As-sistantDirector; theUSGeological Survey’sEarthResourcesDataCenter as Senior Applications Scientist; and the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration’s National Geophysical DataCenter as Chief of Data Integration and Remote Sensing, laterChief of Environmental Indicators. He studied physics and inter-national relations at Tufts University (USA) and the Universita diBologna (Italy), geosciences and engineering at Brown Univer-sity and the University of Arizona (both USA). He has worked,lectured, and traveled in over 100 countries on six continents, andhas published over 100 papers. His latest books (co-edited withRyutaro Tateishi) are Global Environmental Databases: PresentSituation – Future Direction Volume I (2000) and Volume II(2002). Scientific websites developed by David receive severalthousand hits and over 10 gigabytes of downloads weekly.

Dr Gunter Helas is a senior scientist at the BiogeochemistryDepartment of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz,Germany. He has been with the Institute since 1977. Presently,he is interested in biogeochemical cycling of atmospheric tracecompounds relevant to climate, such as those from vegetationfires, among others. He is also involved in research on biofuelsand their emissions in Africa, and on aerosol morphology andcomposition.

Dr Larry W. Horowitz is a physical scientist at the NOAAGeophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton,New Jersey. His research focuses on tropospheric chemistry andair quality. He has developed global chemical transport models(CTMs) to simulate the atmospheric distribution of ozone andits precursors, including reactive nitrogen, carbon monoxide, andvolatile organic compounds. He has used these models to studythe impact of natural and anthropogenic emissions on the abun-dance of trace species in the atmosphere, and to project the futureconcentrations of these species.

Professor Mike Hulme is Executive Director of the Tyndall Cen-tre for Climate Change Research and is based in the School ofEnvironmental Sciences at University of East Anglia, Norwich,UK,where hehasworked for the last 17years.His general researchinterest is global climate change, the construction and applicationof climate change scenarios, and African climate. He has pub-lished over 120 scientific journal articles and book chapters onthese and other topics, together with over 220 reports and populararticles. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the chapter on‘Climate scenario development’ for the Third Assessment Reportof the IPCC (2001), as well as a contributing author for severalother chapters.






xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Dr Chris Justice is a professor in the Geography Department,University ofMaryland,USA.He leads theLandDisciplineGroupfor the NASA Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)at NASA/GSFC. He is responsible for the MODIS Fire Prod-uct. Dr Justice is the Project Scientist for the NASA Land-Coverand Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program, a member of the Sci-ence Advisory Panel for the NOAA Office of Global Programs,and on the Strategic Objective Team for USAID’s Central AfricaRegional Project for the Environment. He has current projects onforest and land cover, monitoring and modelling in central Africa.He played a key role in IGBPData and Information System and inthe development of NASA EOS ScienceWorking Group on Data,and is currently the Fire Implementation Team Leader for theGOFC Project, which is part of the Global Terrestrial ObservingSystem.

Dr Daniel M. Kammen holds the Class of 1935 DistinguishedChair in Energy, and is professor in the Energy and ResourcesGroup, and the Goldman School of Public Policy at the Univer-sity of California, Berkeley, USA. He is also the founding directorof the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL).He received his education in physics from Cornell and HarvardUniversities. He was Assistant Professor in the Woodrow WilsonSchool of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University(1993–1998), where he also chaired the Science, Technology andEnvironmental Policy Program (STEP). Dr Kammen is the au-thor of over 150 publications and four books, on energy scienceand policy, development, and risk, including Should We Risk It?(Princeton University Press, 1999).

Dr Evans Kituyi holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Chemistry andis currently a lecturer at the Department of Chemistry of the Uni-versity ofNairobi, Kenya.He also founded and leads the IndustrialEcology Research Group at the same department. Between 2000and 2004, he served as a Research Fellow on energy and cli-mate change policy issues at the Nairobi-based African Centre forTechnology Studies (ACTS), which he joined upon completinghis doctoral research work with the Biomass Burning Group ofthe Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. Hisresearch then focused on improving the understanding of the roleof household woodfuel burning in Africa on local, regional andglobal climate and tropospheric chemistry. He has written severalpublications in the field of biomass energy technology and policyin which part of his research interests currently lie.

Dr Bart G. J. Knols has a Ph.D. in medical entomology(Wageningen University, the Netherlands) specializing in vectorsof tropical diseases. He has worked in East and Southern Africafor the last 11 years and has published over 50 scientific articlesand several book chapters on the behavioural and chemical ecol-ogy of African malaria mosquitoes. He has undertaken several

international consultancies in disease vector control and servedas an external expert to the Stockholm Convention on PersistentOrganic Pollutants (POPs) for Southern Africa. He is the chair-man of the vector control and repellence group of the ResearchInitiative on Traditional Anti-malarial Methods (RITAM).

Dr Michael Komenda studied Chemistry at the University ofCologne (1992–1998). He finished his diploma thesis on Emis-sions of Volatile Organic Compounds from Domestic Fires inTropical Africa: A Comparison of Laboratory and Field Stud-ies in 1998, and received his Ph.D. in atmospheric chemistry in2001.Hewas a Postdoctoral Fellow (2001–2003) at the Institute ofChemistry and Dynamics of the Geosphere: ICG-II: Troposphereat the Julich Research Centre, Germany. His research was focusedon the emission of volatile organic compounds from vegetation.Since 2003 he has been working for Schwarz BioSciences GmbHas a research scientist.

Dr Ralf Koppmann is Deputy Director of the Institute of Chem-istry and Dynamics of the Geosphere: ICG-II: Troposphere atthe Julich Research Centre, Germany, and Head of the researchgroup Organic Trace Gases. He has been working in the fieldof atmospheric chemistry of volatile organic compounds (VOC)for 15 years. His main research topics have been the sources ofVOC (oceanic, biomass burning and anthropogenic emissions),the global distribution and photochemistry of VOC. His researchgroup is currently focusing on the emission and photochemistryof biogenic VOC.

David Kpelle holds a B.Sc. degree in Natural Resource Man-agement from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science andTechnology, Kumasi, Ghana, Postgraduate Diploma in WildlifeManagement from the College of African Wildlife Managementin Tanzania and an M.Sc. in Tropical Coastal Management Stud-ies from the University of Newcastle, UK. From 1986 to 2000, heled the Zoological Survey Team under the Protected Areas Man-agement Programme of Ghana Wildlife Division. Later he wasappointed the National Coordinator of the GEF-funded CoastalWetlands Management Project. He is currently the Director ofProgrammes at Conservation International, Ghana.

Dr Gordon A. Mackenzie is a SeniorEnergyPlanner at theUNEPRisø Centre on Energy, Climate and Sustainable Developmentat Risø National Laboratory, Denmark. Following his Ph.D. andpostdoctoral research in physics, he has focused on energy andenvironmental issues in developing countries. He was in the teamthat developed the approach to climate change mitigation analysisnow used in most studies of this kind. He was Energy Adviserat the Department of Energy in Zambia (1984–1987), and ChiefTechnical Adviser at the Department of Energy in Lesotho (1999–2002).






CONTRIBUTORS OF CHAPTERS xv

Dr George Manful is a Programme Officer in the GEF Sup-port Unit of the secretariat of the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) based in Bonn, Ger-many. He served as a senior Adviser to the Executive Secretaryfrom August 2002 to March 2003. Prior to joining the secretariatin January 1999, he coordinated the preparation of the nationalcommunication of Ghana to the UNFCCC. He has extensiveexperience in coordinating the implementation of environmen-tal management and climate change capacity-building projects.He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from the Univer-sity of Gent, Belgium. He was a consultant for the World Bankon the implementation of the Ghana Environmental ResourceManagement Project from 1995 to 1997, and Director of Op-erations at the Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana in1998.

Dr Kennedy Masamvu is a Senior Agrometeorologist in chargeof the SADC Secretariat in Gaborone, Botswana. He holds aPh.D. in Remote Sensing from Bristol University, UK, and anM.Sc. in Agrometeorology from Reading University, UK. He hasbeen working for the SADC Regional Early Warning System forFood Security since 1994. His main interests are in agrometeorol-ogy, remote sensing and GIS for use in early warning systems forfood security. He has participated in many national and interna-tional projects on the impacts of climate variability on agriculturalproduction.

Dr Mohammed U. Mohammed is currently an Associate Profes-sor at the department of Geology and Geophysics of Addis AbabaUniversity, Ethiopia. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1992 in France fromthe University of Aix-Marseille III, after conducting research in aCNRS laboratory on the environment and climate of the last fewthousand years in Ethiopia. He also received grants for researchvisits from the FrenchMinistry of Foreign affairs, from the CNRS(France), from the Royal Society (UK) and from the START office(Washington DC, USA). He has authored and co-authored severalarticles on the environmental and climatic history of Ethiopia andthe surrounding regions. He is currently a member of the scientificsteering committee of the IGBP-PAGES-PEP III project.

Gray Munthali is an agrometeorologist in the MeteorologicalDepartment of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation inMalawi. He monitors the impact of weather on food productionand provides critical information to the National Early WarningSystem in order to maintain agricultural and food security. He hasparticipated in various national and international conferences onagricultural and climate issues. Gray Munthali has a masters de-gree in agricultural meteorology from the University of Reading,UK, and a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from the Universityof Nairobi, Kenya. He received additional training inmanagementstudies from the University of Malawi.

Dr Freddy Nachtergaele is an agronomist working for the FAOas a Technical Officer on Soil Resources and Land Classificationsince 1989. Prior to that he was a land resources expert for FAO infield projects inEastAfrica and inSouth-EastAsia.He coordinatesthe update of the Soil Map of the World and FAO’s Global Agro-ecological Zones work. He is the author of numerous scientificarticles in the field of agro-ecological zoning, land evaluation,land-use planning and soil classification.

Dr Mark New is a Lecturer at the School of Geography, OxfordUniversity, UK. He has published widely in the area of observedclimate change, climate prediction and climate impacts on hydro-logical systems and water resources. He was a contributing authorto the chapter on ‘Observed climate variability and change’ to theIPCC Third Assessment Report (2001). His current research in-cludes mechanisms of climate variability under global warming,probabilistic climate prediction and interactions between climateand soil moisture.

Dr Todd Ngara was in charge of the Advisory Services of theZimbabwe Department of Meteorological Services for 15 years.He later joined the University of Zimbabwe as a lecturer in theDepartment of Geography and Environmental Studies. He super-vised the preparation of the Zimbabwe Initial National Communi-cation to the UNFCCC. In that capacity, he had worked on severaloccasions as a consultant for the UNFCCC secretariat based inBonn, Germany. He is currently working at the Technical SupportUnit (TSU) for the IPCCNational Greenhouse Gas Inventory Pro-gramme, which is based at the Institute for Global EnvironmentalStrategies (IGES) in Japan.

Professor Godwin Olu Patrick Obasi (see above)

Dr Eric O. Odada is the Director of the Pan-African STARTSecretariat (PASS) and a professor at the University of Nairobi,Kenya. His research interests include sedimentary processes inlarge lakes and oceans and the derivation of palaeoclimate recordsfrom lake sediments. He has conducted research on the large lakesof the East African Rift Valley for many years and published twobooks: The Limnology, Climatology and Palaeoclimatology of theEast African Lakes (Gordon and Breach, 1996); and The EastAfrican Great Lakes: Limnology, Palaeolimnology and Biodiver-sity (Kluwer, 2002).

Dr Daniel Ochieng’ Olago is a lecturer in Geology, and hasa background in Quaternary Science. His research interests in-clude palaeoenvironments and palaeoclimate and their implica-tions and relevance to the present and future; human impact onthe environment; past and present; and the physical and chem-ical dynamics of lacustrine systems. Dr Olago is currently amember of the East African Natural History Society (EANHS),






xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

the IGBP-PAGES Scientific Committee, and the CLIVAR-VACSPanel for Africa. He has authored and co-authored several pa-pers on Quaternary palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment of EastAfrica.

Keith Openshaw is an energy, environment and forestryeconomist and he has degrees in Forestry and Economics fromAberdeen University, Scotland. He has worked in sub-SaharanAfrica since 1968, with 14 years’ residency in Kenya and Tanza-nia.He has undertaken forestry assessments, environmental analy-ses and energy surveys in over 20African countries. He introducedto Kenya the ceramic charcoal stove, which is now manufacturedin several African countries. He has been employed by FAO, Nor-wegian Aid, the World Bank and the Swedish Academy of Sci-ences. Until his retirement in January 2004, Keith Openshaw waswith the International Resources Group of Washington, DC. Hehas written over 150 articles, one book and several book chapterson natural resources and renewable energy.

Dr Luanne Otter is currently a Senior Research Scientist in theClimatology Research Group at the University of the Witwater-srand in South Africa. Trained as an ecophysiologist, she hasover the last few years been involved in the field of biogeochem-istry. Her main research interest is biogenic trace gas fluxes (NO,CH4, VOCs) and their controlling factors. Dr Otter is the regionalcoordinator of the Southern African Regional Science Initiative(SAFARI-2000), and a member of the Pan-African Committeefor the System for Analysis, Research and Training (START)programme.

Rolph A. Payet is currently the Principal Secretary of the Min-istry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Republic ofSeychelles. He was Director-General of the Policy, Planning andServices Division, Ministry of Environment, from 1999 to 2003,and directly responsible for the operation of the National Meteo-rological Services and the Climate Centre. He is also the InterimCoordinator of the UNEP Regional Seas Programme of EasternAfrica. Rolph Payet was review editor of Chapter 17 of the IPCCThird Assessment Report,WorkingGroup 2, and is a lead author ofthe IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group 2. He waseditor/co-author of the Seychelles Initial National Communica-tion to the UNFCCC. He is the chief negotiator of the Seychellesdelegation at the UNFCCC meetings.

Dr Francis E. ‘Jack’ Putz is a Professor of Botany and Forestryat the University of Florida and a Senior Research Associatewith the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) inIndonesia. His research focus is on the ecological basis of tropicalforestry and on market-based incentives for forest management asa conservation strategy. His principal study sites are currently in

Bolivia, but he has also conducted research in much of South-EastAsia and in southern Africa.

Robert A. Reinstein is currently an international consultant, spe-cializing in energy, environment and international trade. He wasDeputy Assistant Secretary for Environment, Health and Natu-ral Resources at the US Department of State from 1990 to 1993and the chief US negotiator for the UNFCCC. He was also chair-man of Working Group III (on response strategies, 1991–1992)and of Working Group II (on impacts, adaptation and mitigation,1992–1993) of the IPCC. He was alternate chief US negotiatorfor the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances in 1987and for the London Amendment to the Protocol (1990) and chiefnegotiator for the Copenhagen Amendment (1992).

Dr Ian H. Rowlands is an Associate Professor in the Depart-ment of Environment and Resource Studies at the University ofWaterloo, Canada. He is the editor of Climate ChangeCo-operation in Southern Africa (Earthscan, 1998), the authorof The Politics of Global Atmospheric Change (ManchesterUniversity Press, 1995) and the co-editor of Global Environ-mental Change and International Relations (Macmillan, 1992).Dr Rowlands has also authored numerous articles, book chaptersand consultancy reports on various subjects, including interna-tional environmental policy, energy management and policy is-sues, global climate change, business and the environment, andenergy/environment issues in southern Africa.

K. Madhava Sarma is a consultant on environment currentlybased in Chennai, India. He worked for UNEP for more thannine years as the Executive Secretary of the Secretariat for theVienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol. Earlier, he heldsenior positions in the Government of India and helped articulatethe developing-country view on environmental issues. He has co-authored (with StephenAndersen) a book onProtecting theOzoneLayer: The United Nations History (Earthscan, 2002).

Dr Mary Scholes is an associate professor in the Department ofAnimal, Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of theWitwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. She lectures in plantphysiology, savanna ecology, environmental biology and biogeo-chemistry. Her research activities focus on soil fertility and bio-geochemistry in savannas, forests and croplands. She has authoredover 60 articles and eight book chapters. Dr Scholes is a mem-ber of the editorial boards ofApplied Soil Ecology andEcosystemsand Biogeochemistry, and a foreignmember of the Royal SwedishAcademy of Natural Sciences. She also serves as a board memberfor the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), andon the Science Steering Committee of the IGBP.

Ivan Scrase studied Geography at Oxford University (1987–1991) and Environmental Technology at Imperial College,






CONTRIBUTORS OF CHAPTERS xvii

London (1991–1992). Since then he has worked in energyresearch for the late Professor David Hall at King’s College andat the Association for the Conservation of Energy in London.He has also worked as a coordinator of a rural development pro-gramme in Peru. He has published papers on biomass energy,energy conservation and integrated approaches to policy assess-ment. He returned in 2000 to Imperial College’s Centre for En-vironmental Technology to study for a Ph.D. on approaches toenvironmental assessment, funded by the Environment Agencyof England and Wales, and the Economic and Social ResearchCouncil.

Gillian Simmonds is currently a Senior Policy Advisor at theCBI, UK. She was formerly a senior researcher at the Centrefor the study of Regulated Industries, University of Bath, UK,where her areas of specialization included energy, environment,and social and consumer policy and regulation. Her specific re-search interests include climate change policy and practice, therelationship between energy-related environmental policy andsocial development concerns, and competition policy and regu-lation with a specific focus on universal and public service obli-gations and consumer participation, redress and representation.

Randall Spalding-Fecher is Director of ECON Analysis (Oslo)office in South Africa. He was formerly a senior researcher at theEnergy and Development Research Centre (EDRC), Universityof Cape Town, South Africa. His work focuses on CDM projectdevelopment, climate change policy and mitigation analysis, en-ergy and environmental economics, and the links between en-ergy policy and sustainable development, including indicators forenergy and sustainable development. He has published widely,including The CDM Guidebook: A Resource for the Clean De-velopment Mechanism Project Developers in Southern Africa(EDRC, 2002).

Dr John Todd is an environmental educator and consultant. Helectured and conducted research in environmental managementand environmental technology at the University of Tasmania,Australia, from 1978 to 2002. He now works as a consultant inair quality, renewable energy and biomass, and remains an hon-orary research associate in the Centre for Environmental Studies,University of Tasmania. He has a strong interest in EnvironmentalEducation and influencing the community through effective ed-ucation practices. He has extensive experience with governmentcommittees and policy formulation relating to technical aspectsof environmental management. He has worked in all AustralianStates and Territories and several Pacific and SE Asian coun-tries. Dr Todd was Chairman of the Solid Fuel Burning Appli-ances Committee of Standards Australia (1982–1998), receivingthe Standards Australia Award in 1994, and Chairman of Solar

Energy Society of Australia and New Zealand (1998–2000). Hehas published over 120 conference and journal papers, mainlyin the fields of renewable energy and pollution, including Wood-Smoke Handbook: Woodheaters, Firewood and Operator Prac-tice, Environment Australia, Canberra (2002).

Ingeborg M. C. J. van Schayk is a social scientist with strong in-terest in public health and gender in developing countries. She hasworked and lived in Africa for more than nine years, and workedfor UNESCO in Costa Rica for two years. Currently she is a con-sultant with the National Library ofMedicine (USA) and serves asthe communications coordinator for the Multilateral Initiative forMalaria in Africa (MIM), through the MIMCom network. She isspecializing in communication enhancement for malaria researchin the African context.

Dr Kristin von Czapiewski completed her Diploma thesis onEmission of volatile organic compounds from small domestic firesin tropical and subtropical Africa in 1995 after studying chemistryat the Universities of Greifswald and Oldenburg in Germany. Shecompleted her Ph.D. thesis on Investigations of volatile organiccompounds emitted from biomass burning. She was PostdoctoralFellow (1999–2001) at the Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry,York University, Toronto, Canada. Her research was focused onkinetic isotope effects for the reactions of non-methane hydrocar-bons with hydroxyl (OH) radicals.

Dr Shem O. Wandiga is a Professor in the Department of Chem-istry, University of Nairobi, Kenya. He also served as DeputyVice-Chancellor (Administration and Finances) of the University(1988–1994). He is interested in research on the sources and sinksof biogenic gases, persistent organochlorine pesticides in the trop-ics, trace metal concentrations in various environmental media,and complexes ofGroupVBmetalswith sulphur and oxygen bind-ing ligands, and he has published several papers in these areas.Professor Wandiga has been Chair of the Pan-African Committeeof START since 2001, and a member of the Advisory Committeeon Environment of the ICSU since 1999. He was also a memberof ICSU’s General Committee (1996–1998), Chair of the KenyaNational Academy of Sciences (1992–2002), and past Chair ofthe national IGBP Committee (1992–2002). He was elected, as aKenya representative, to the Executive Board of UNESCO (1995),and President of the External Relations and Programme Commis-sion of the Board (1997).

Dr George Wiafe is an Oceanography Lecturer at the Departmentof Oceanography and Fisheries, University of Ghana, and a visit-ingOceanographyLecturer at theGhanaArmedForcesCommandand Staff College. He holds a Masters degree in Marine Biologyfrom the University of Newcastle and a Ph.D. in Oceanography






xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

from the University of Ghana. He has published 19 articles onissues relating to plankton ecology in the Gulf of Guinea and theNorth Sea, nutrient fluxes, and conservation of marine resources,as well as a manual (with CD-ROM) on marine zooplankton ofWest Africa.

Dr David S. Wilkie is a wildlife ecologist with a post-doctoralanthropology specialization in human behavioural ecology. Hehas over 18 years of research experience in the socio-economicaspects of household level natural resource use in Central andWest Africa, and in Central and South America. His researchin the Congo Basin has focused on: determining the local andregional impact of forager and farmer subsistence practices onforest plant and animal composition, distribution and abundance;and the household economic determinants of Efe hunter-gathereradoption of agriculture into their suite of subsistence activities.His other research interests include examining the impacts of tradeand the commercialization of non-timber forest products on for-est animal populations; the role that logging plays in promotingbushmeat markets; the income and price elasticities of demandfor bushmeat; and the use of satellite imagery and aerial photo-

graphy to model the location, extent and rate of land transforma-tion within rainforests.

Dr Peter P. Zhou is an applied geophysicist and is currently theDirector of Energy, Environment, Computer andGeophysical Ap-plications (EECG) Consultants Pty in Gaborone, Botswana. Hehas been involved in climate change studies since 1992 and hasparticipated in variousmultilateral, bilateral and national projects.Dr Zhou has been working on issues in energy sector in southernAfrica since 1984. He has been contributing to the IPCC Assess-ment Reports since 1995, first as a reviewer, later as a lead author.He has also contributed to the UNFCCC process on issues relatedto technology transfer in 1999–2001 and as a CDM Meth panelmember in 2002–2004. Dr Zhou has many publications, includ-ing Sustainable Mobility: Perspectives from the Transport Sectorin East and Southern Africa (see Industry and Environment, Vol.23, No. 4, UNEP (2000); Climate ChangeMitigation Options andStrategies for Africa (see Climate Change in Africa, a GLOBESouthern Africa Publication);. Integrated Assessment and Miti-gation (see TIEMPO, Issue 34, December 1999, IIED, Londonand University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK).






Peer reviewers

Professor Dilip Ahuja, National Institute of Advanced Studies,India.

Dr Stephen Andersen, United States Environment ProtectionAgency, USA.

Dr Robert C. Balling, Jr., Arizona State University, USA.

Dr Abdelkrim Ben Mohamed, Institute forRadioisotopes,Niger.

Professor Peter Brimblecombe, University of East Anglia, UK.

Dr Neil de Wet, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Dr Paul V. Desanker, Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Dr Robert K. Dixon, Department of Energy, USA.

Dr Richard D. Duke, McKinsey & Company, USA.

Dr David Duthie, United Nations Environment Programme,Kenya.

Dr Graham Farmer, FAO–Regional Inter-Agency CoordinationSupport Office (FAO–RIACSO), South Africa.

Dr Jes Fenger, National Environmental Research Institute,Denmark.

Dr Michael H. Glantz, National Center for AtmosphericResearch, USA.

Dr Hiremagalur N. B. Gopalan, United Nations EnvironmentProgramme, Kenya.

Dr Michael Graber, United Nations Environment Programme,Kenya.

Dr Mark Griffith, UNEP Regional Office for Latin America andthe Caribbean, Mexico.

Dr Sujata Gupta, Asian Development Bank, the Philippines.

Tom Hamlin, United Nations Environment Programme (ParisOffice), France.

Dr David A. Hastings, United Nations Economic and SocialCommission for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand.

Professor John E. Hay, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Dr Gunter Helas, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry,Germany.

Professor Mike Hulme, University of East Anglia, UK.

Professor Phil Jones, University of East Anglia, UK.

Professor Christopher O. Justice, University ofMaryland,USA.

Professor Daniel M. Kammen, University of California,Berkeley, USA.

Dr Stjepan Keckes, Marine science consultant, Croatia.

Dr Mick Kelly, University of East Anglia, UK.

Dr Lambert Kuijpers, Technical University, The Netherlands.

Dr Henry Lamb, University of Wales, UK.

Dr Mark G. Lawrence, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry,Germany.

Dr Ti Le-Huu, UnitedNations Economic and Social Commissionfor Asia and the Pacific, Thailand.

Dr Gordon A. Mackenzie, UNEP Risoe Centre on Energy,Climate Change and Sustainable Development, Denmark.

Dr George Manful, United Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change Secretariat, Germany.

Dr Alan Miller, International Finance Corporation, USA.

Dr Isabelle Niang-Diop, Technology University C.A. Diop,Senegal.

Keith Openshaw, International Resources Group, USA (retiredin 2004).

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xx PEER REVIEWERS

Seth Osafo, United Nations Framework Convention on ClimateChange Secretariat, Germany.

Dr Jean Palutikof, Meteorological Office, UK.

Vivian Raksakulthai, Environment consultant, Thailand.

Robert A. Reinstein, Reinstein & Associates International, Inc.,USA.

Professor Henning Rodhe, Stockholm University, Sweden.

Dr Ian Rowlands, University of Waterloo, Canada.

Professor Jochen Rudolph, York University, Canada.

Dr Hesphina Rukato, The New Partnership for Africa’s Devel-opment (NEPAD) Secretariat, South Africa.

Dr Mohd. Nor Salleh, TroBio Forest Sdn Bhd, Malaysia.

Dr Pedro A. Sanchez, Columbia University, USA.

K. Madhava Sarma, Environment consultant, India.

Professor Cherla B Sastry, C & R Associates Canada, Canada.

Randall Spalding-Fecher, ECON Analysis, South Africa.

Dr Anna Tengberg, United Nations Environment Programme,Kenya.

Dr Wassila M. Thiaw, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-ministration, USA.

Dr Alexandre Timoshenko, United Nations consultant, RussianFederation.

Dr John Todd, Eco-Energy Options, Tasmania, Australia.

Gregory Tosen, Eskom Research, Development and Demonstra-tion, South Africa.

Emeritus Professor Jan C. van der Leun, Utrecht University,The Netherlands.

Dr Robert van Slooten, Economics consultant, UK.

Dr Hassan Virji, International START Secretariat, USA.

Xueman Wang, Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat,Canada.

Professor Donald A. Wilhite, University of Nebraska, USA.

Dr Andrew Yager, United Nations Development Programme,USA.

Professor Francis D. Yamba, University of Zambia, Zambia.

Dr Peter P. Zhou, EECG Consultants, Botswana.






Editor’s note

This book project was first initiated in mid-1999 before I leftthe United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi,Kenya. Originally it was intended as a special journal issueto be published by the African Centre for Technology Studies(ACTS), but the enthusiastic response from potential contrib-utors has made the publication of a book possible. However,only a few manuscripts were submitted by the end of that year.The project then followed me to Bonn, Germany, where I wasworking as a consultant for the United Nations Framework Con-vention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat from July toDecember 1999. Following that, it went with me to Mainz,Germany, where I spent three months in the Max-Planck-Institutefor Chemistry, which was then headed by Professor Paul Crutzen.Then, back to Bonn again, during my brief engagements as a con-sultant for the UNFCCC secretariat and the United Nations Con-vention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) secretariat. Thenon to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as I worked as a freelance con-sultant, and finally to Bangkok, Thailand, when in June 2001I joined the United Nations Economic and Social Commissionfor Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) as its Regional Adviseron Environment and Sustainable Development. Since then, theproject has started to pick up momentum, with most chapters sub-mitted, peer reviewed, revised, edited and proofread by the endof 2002. Four new chapters (5, 20, 25 and 27) were added in2003.In many ways, the slow progress of this book has, to a large

extent, reflected the winding path of my professional career overthe past few years. And the fact that I have been in full time em-ployment with UNESCAP since June 2001 has meant countlesslate nights between numerous official missions dedicated to com-pleting this book. I really owe the authors, especially those whosubmitted their papers before 2002, a sincere apology for not hav-ing moved the project on faster. Due to the lengthy processes ofsoliciting papers, peer reviewing, formatting, revising, editing andproofreading (some papers have undergone a few rounds), as wellas a number of early technical difficulties, such as transformingall chapters into a standardized format, the process of producing

this book has been far more time-consuming than I could haveever anticipated when I began the project.This book is about climate changewith special focus on Africa.

It contains a total of 31 chapters, written by 62 authors and co-authors. The chapters are broadly divided into five parts: Science;Sustainable Energy Development, Mitigation and Policy; Vulner-ability and Adaptation; Capacity-Building; and Lessons From theMontreal Protocol, covering a wide spectrum of topics. All chap-ters are independent from one another and yet they are interlinked.Together, they provide a coherent picture of the challenges andopportunities that African countries are facing amid the growingevidence and concerns of climate change and its impacts, as wellas their response efforts and specific needs under the UNFCCCand its Kyoto Protocol. The chapters were all written by leadingexperts in various fields, including both well-known authors, witha long list of publications, and very promising, up and comingyoung authors. About 40% of the lead authors and co-authorsare from Africa. Originally, I was hoping to have at least 50%African authors from both Anglophone and Francophone Africancountries. However, despite persistent efforts, I was unfortunatelyunsuccessful in including any papers from Francophone Africanexperts, though a few have been peer reviewers.The first nine chapters cover scientific issues. Odada and Olago

(Chapter 1) provide a very comprehensive review of the climatic,hydrological and environmental oscillations in the tropics duringthe Holocene, with special reference to Africa, and suggest thatthey are linked to a number of factors, such as changes in earthsurface temperatures, sea surface temperatures (SSTs), ocean andatmospheric circulation patterns, regional topography, land sur-face albedo, etc. ‘The relative importance of these forcing factorsand the extent of the linkages between them are still unclear, butthe data suggest that the climate and hydrology of the tropical re-gions may be adversely affected by the anthropogenically drivenrise in global temperatures and land use.’ Mohammed (Chapter 2)assesses the relative importance of the different forcings onthe dynamic nature of the environment in Ethiopia during theHolocene, and highlights the widespread human impacts on the

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xxii EDITOR’S NOTE

environment during the twentieth century, especially in its secondhalf. Hulme et al. (Chapter 3) provide an assessment of future cli-mate change scenarios for Africa and discuss these possible futureclimates in the light of modelling uncertainties and in the contextof other causes of African climate variability and change. Theysuggest that in viewof the uncertainties, it is important to place em-phasis ‘on reducing vulnerability to adverse climate-events and in-creasing capacity to adapt to short-term and seasonal weather con-ditions and climatic variability’. The interactions of climate withdesertification are clearly demonstrated by Balling (Chapter 4),who has previously written extensively on this topic. Hastings(Chapter 5), using satellite imagery and in situ data processed ina geographic information system, offers us some perspectives onAfrica’s climate. Some approaches described in the paper may beuseful for operational climate-related decision-making. The im-portant role of atmospheric chemistry in climate is extensivelydiscussed in Chapters 6 to 9. Brasseur et al. (Chapter 6) providean excellent overview of the chemical processes that determinethe budget of tropospheric ozone (O3) and the formation of thehydroxyl radical (OH), with emphasis on their role in the tropics.Koppmann et al. (Chapter 7) highlight the importance of natu-ral and human-induced biomass burning in Africa as a source ofvolatile organic compounds, which play an active role in atmo-spheric chemistry. Kituyi et al. (Chapter 8) point out the need tocontrol biomass burning, and this could provide opportunities foremission mitigation through the Clean Development Mechanism(CDM), one of the three Kyoto Protocol mechanisms. Otter andScholes (Chapter 9) provide a comprehensive account of the im-portance of soil micro-organisms as sources and sinks of manytrace gases (e.g. methane, nitrous oxide and nitric oxide) and thevarious approaches to measure the fluxes of these trace gases be-tween soil and atmosphere. They also discuss the impacts of thebiogenic trace gases on the atmospheric chemistry of the southernAfrican region.The next eight chapters deal with issues relating to sustain-

able energy development, including both technological and pol-icymeasures that have implications for climate changemitigation.These include biomass energy, enthusiastically promoted by Halland Scrase (Chapter 10); the examination of the nexus betweenpopulation growth and the demand for agricultural land in the dif-ferent regions of Africa (Chapter 11 by Openshaw); and the op-portunities offered by CDM for sustainable energy development(Chapter 12bySpalding-Fecher andSimmonds). Theproposed re-gional approaches in sub-Saharan Africa to global climate changepolicy merit serious consideration and discussion (Chapter 13 byZhou and Chapter 14 by Rowlands). Duke and Kammen (Chap-ter 15) discuss the promotion of solar home systems in Africaand its implications for global carbon emission reduction. Jus-tice et al. (Chapter 16) discuss the significance of climate changeto African nations and the related needs and opportunities. They

highlight the importance of scientific equity and the urgent needfor investment in African scientific infrastructure to help Africanscientists inform and advise African governments and decisionmakers on the likely impacts of climate change on their nations’economy and resource base. Abdel Gelil (Chapter 17) discussesthe climate energy policy in Egypt and ‘demonstrates a develop-ing country’s success story of better management of indigenousenergy resources while striving to meet domestic energy demandand secure sufficient oil exports earnings that are needed to fi-nance economic development’. It may serve as a model for otherAfrican countries of similar condition.To many developing and least-developed countries, including

African countries, vulnerability and adaptation to climate changeare their major concerns. Seven chapters are devoted to these is-sues, ranging from the potential impacts of sea-level rise on pop-ulations and agriculture (Chapter 18 by Gommes et al.) and oncoastal biodiversity in Ghana (Chapter 19 by Armah et al.), to theimpacts of El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the socio-economic activities in Africa (Chapter 20 by Obasi). Two specificcase studies further illustrate the impacts of ENSO events: one byPayet (Chapter 21) on the Seychelles during the 1997–1999ENSOevents, the other by van Schayk et al. (Chapter 22) on the outbreakof Paederus dermatitis in East Africa during the 1997–1998 ElNino event. Payet also emphasizes the need to use the response toENSO events as a policy window for developing adaptive capac-ity to the long-term climate change. The linkage between climatechange and ENSO is a focus for current research. It has been ob-served that the frequency, magnitude and persistence of El Ninohave increased over the past two decades and this trend is projectedto increase in the future. Eriksen (Chapter 23) discusses the impor-tance of indigenous plants as a livelihood resource in householdcoping mechanisms during the 1996 drought in a dryland agri-cultural area in Kenya, and concludes that ‘policies aimed at en-hancing local indigenous plants and household capacity to copewith climatic variability can improve local welfare’. Desankeret al. (Chapter 24) discuss the requirements needed to use the toolof integrated assessment modelling for climate change impact andadaptation options assessment at the regional and national levels inAfrica. Basher and Briceno (Chapter 25) provide the only chapterthat discusses climate and disaster risk reduction in Africa. Theysuggest that the increased numbers of climate-related disastersover the last few decades appear to be mostly due to growing vul-nerability and closer awareness and reporting of events, and henceattention must remain focused on the vulnerabilities and risks as-sociated with existing climate variability, even though disasterrisk reduction provides a potent means to advance the adaptationagenda.Three chapters cover the important issue of capacity-building.

While Mackenzie (Chapter 26) provides his own experiencesin capacity enhancement activities related to climate change






EDITOR’S NOTE xxiii

mitigation analysis – by nomeans a simple exercise – inBotswana,Tanzania and Zambia, Manful (Chapter 27) with his deep involve-ment in capacity-building activities in the UNFCCC secretariat,provides an informative account of the existing capacity-buildingactivities in African countries, and further highlights their specificneeds. Todd (Chapter 28), as an environmental educationist andenergy efficiency expert, emphasizes the importance of education(both school and community) and public awareness in promotingenergy efficiency and hence slowing the emissions of greenhousegases in Africa. This is a ‘no-regret’ policy that has ‘direct socialbenefits irrespective of their impact on climate change’. The im-balance of number of chapters between the previous two parts andthis one is an acknowledged shortcoming of the book. Indeed, Iwould have liked to see a few more chapters in this section, in-cluding some case studies and good practices inAfrican countries,especially with regard to the lessons learned in enabling activitiesduring the preparation of their initial national communications,which are far more than just a reporting requirement under theUNFCCC. It is important for the developing and least-developedcountries to use this national communication process to build upor strengthen their human, scientific, technical, technological andinstitutional capacity, so as to ensure the sustainability of theireffective participation in the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocolprocesses.The three chapters on Lessons From the Montreal Protocol are

linked to climate change issues. They are included with a viewto sharing some of the experiences and lessons learned from theimplementation of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that De-plete the Ozone Layer adopted in 1987. While Sarma (Chapter29) and Andersen (Chapter 31) believe that the success of theMontreal Protocol has much to offer to the UNFCCC and itsKyoto Protocol processes, Reinstein (Chapter 31) questionswhether the Montreal Protocol is a good model for responding toclimate change. Reinstein’s view is thought-provoking and meritsfurther discussion.I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all the authors.

Indeed, without their great patience and persistent support, thisbook would have never been realized. I have been most privilegedto have known and worked with many of them. I was saddenedthat two of the authors, Professor David O. Hall, who was born inSouth Africa, and Dr Ruben O. Agwanda, a Kenyan, passed awayduring the preparation of theirmanuscripts. This book is dedicatedto them. I corresponded with the late Professor Hall, in particular,during the process of his manuscript preparation, though we nevermet. I was profoundly moved when I was told by one of his col-leagues during his memorial service, held on 26 November 1999in London, that hewas very concerned about the completion of thepaper even when he was hospitalized. This truly reflects the dedi-cated character of the late Professor Hall as a prominent scientist.As revealed by Dr K. Krishna Rao in his obituary, less than two

days before the late Professor Hall peacefully passed away, ‘hespent his afternoons discussing research work and future projects,arranging examiners for his Ph.D. students and watching cricketon TV.’The book ismost honoured to have the forewords kindlywritten

by Dr Mostafa K. Tolba, Ambassador Michael Zammit Cutajar,AmbassadorMikkoPyhala andProfessorDieterH.Ehhalt, and theprefaces by Professor Godwin O. P. Obasi, Dr Wulf Killmann, DrSalvano Briceno and Dr Hassan Virji, who are all distinguishedscientists and experts in their own fields. Their forewords andprefaces provide a good overview of the contents and focus ofthe book, and, in many ways, complement the chapters well, andhence have added great value to the book.All chapters in this book have gone through a very robust peer-

review process. My special thanks also to the 62 peer reviewers,who have kindly contributed their time and effort to review thechapters, sometimes at very short notice, and sometimes for morethan one paper. They have ensured that the papers selected forpublication in the book are of undisputed high quality.Iwould also like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support

of the sponsors: FAO, UN/ISDR, WMO, the START Secretariatand Tiempo – a quarterly information bulletin and associated web-site (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/) on global warming andthe third world. Their sponsorships have contributed towards areduced price for the book, which makes it more affordable to themajority of readers. Needless to say, the views expressed in thisbook are those entirely of the authors and they do not necessarilyreflect those of the sponsors, the editor or the publisher.Many individuals have also contributed to this book. Vivian

Raksakulthai, Ian Grange, Will Keenan, Rick Whisenand, KaiYin Low and Ling Si Low have kindly proofread some of thechapters, and Pieter Bakker, Khun Patnarin Sutthirak and KhunPatanapong Siriwatananukul have kindly assisted in formattingmany chapters. I am most grateful for their assistance.Throughout my academic and professional career, a number of

people have had a profound influence on the path that I have cho-sen to take. Professor Emeritus Miles Kennedy, former Head ofDepartment of Chemical and Process Engineering, University ofCanterbury, New Zealand, greatly inspired me during my forma-tive years; Dr John Hails first transformed me from a chemicalengineer to an environmental scientist in the late 1970s; Dr TerrySmith and Dr John Todd guided me during my early days in atmo-spheric research; Chris Purton, Bill Moriarty and Dr John Greeninformally taughtmemany things aboutmeteorology; the late Pro-fessor Harry Bloom, Professor Dieter Ehhalt, Dr Urlich Schmidt,Professor Peter Brimblecombe, Professor Peter Liss, ProfessorStuart Penkett and Professor Paul Crutzen have had a great in-fluence on me with regard to the field of atmospheric chemistry.Professor Trevor Davies and DrMick Kelly first got me interestedin ozone and climate change issues when I joined the Climatic






xxiv EDITOR’S NOTE

Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, UK, in1988; and it was a privilege to work with them. Other colleaguesat CRU, including Professor Tom Wigley, Dr Astrid Ogilvie, DrGraham Farmer, Dr Phil Jones, Dr Jean Palutikof, Dr Tom Holt,Dr Keith Briffa, Dr Sarah Raper and Dr Mike Hulme, were mosthelpful during my three exciting and fruitful years with the unit,when global warming and climate change were still hotly de-bated in the scientific community. These colleagues have beenthe prominent pioneers in climatic research. Dr Mostafa K. Tolbawas my mentor on sustainable environmental policy and sustain-able development, which he has been tirelessly promoting throughhis numerous speeches and writings, even after his retirement inDecember 1992 from UNEP as its Executive Director. Dr Wo-Yen Lee greatly broadened my outlook on various global envi-ronmental issues during our time as colleagues in UNEP beforehe retired in 1993. And Ambassador Michael Zammit Cutajar,who provided the UNFCCC secretariat with great momentumwhen he was its first Executive Secretary, was always an in-spiration for his diplomatic skills in steering the climate changenegotiations.Since leavingUNEP inmid-1999,many friends and colleagues,

including Dr Nay Htun, Ambassador Mikko Pyhala and hiswife, Pia, Dr Naigzy Gebremedhin, Dr Steve Andersen, Dr SuvitYodmani, K. Madhava Sarma, Mahboob Elahi, Michelle Lee,DrMarkGriffith, Hassane Bendahmane, Theodor Kapiga,MarthaPerdomo,DrGeorgeManful, DrAngelaWilkinson,AidarKarata-banov, Dr Manab Chakraborty, Dr Anna Tengberg, ProfessorAlexandre Timoshenko, Dr StejpanKeckes, Carmen Tavera, SongLi, Dr Mohd Nor Salleh, Lai Tan Fatt, Tan Meng Leng, Tan Hoo

and ChowKokKee, have consistently providedmewith their kindadvice and encouragement. I am most grateful for their genuineand unfailing friendships.I am also most grateful to my colleagues at UNESCAP, includ-

ing Dr Kim Hak-Su, the Executive Secretary, and Ravi Sawhney,former Director of Environment and Sustainable DevelopmentDivision, who have been very supportive of my work and henceprovided the conducive working environment in which this bookproject could move forward. Dr Rezaul Karim and Phang PinSuang were also very supportive of my work before they retiredfrom UNESCAP.The impressive artistic image selected for the book cover was

kindly contributed by Emeritus Professor Yuan Li, a distinguishedamateur photographer whom I met in November 1994 during hissabbatical leave at Kenyatta University, Kenya.Last but not least, the authors and I are most delighted that

Cambridge University Press has decided to publish the book. Iam particularly grateful to Dr Matt Lloyd, Senior Commission-ing Editor, Earth and Space Sciences; Emily Yossarian, SeniorPublishing Assistant; Dr Sally Thomas, Physical Sciences Editor;Jayne Aldhouse, Production Editor; and their colleagues, as wellasMargaret Patterson, copy-editor, for providing all the necessaryguidance and assistance in ensuring that this book is publishedsmoothly and in the most professional manner.This book belongs to all authors, contributors and peer review-

ers, and to all those who love Africa and its people.

Pak Sum LowUNESCAP, Bangkok, Thailand






Foreword by Mostafa K. Tolba

No environmental issue has been of such truly global magnitudeas the issue of climate change. And no other global environmentalissue has been so controversial, not because of lack of scientificknowledge but rather because it is a result of every human actionand will have a direct impact on all human endeavour everywhere,North and South, East and West.Some hide behind the lack of scientific certainty, making it an

excuse not to act to deal with a major potential catastrophe. As ascientist, I have never seen any scientific subject where scientistsagreed on all its aspects one hundred per cent. We go by themajority – not just a simple majority, but a real, solid majority.And that is what we have now.We now know enough to indicate that the poor developing

countries are the least equipped to adapt, on their own, to cli-mate change, although most of them played, and will certainlycontinue to play, an insignificant role in causing it.African countries are among the poorest of the developing coun-

tries. Most of the least developed countries are in Africa.So, this book is really coming at the right time, and it presents

the issues of relevance to Africa – sea-level rise to a con-tinent surrounded by two oceans and two seas; energy in acontinent where the most used source of energy is firewood

(destroying a carbon sink and an oxygen generator and a soilstabilizer for a continent with large areas of marginal soil); anddesertification in a continent suffering from repeated droughtsand hard-hitting desertification problems. These and several otherissues in this book should catch the attention of both scientistsand policy makers in a continent that is starting to put togetherfor implementation an action programme to achieve sustainabledevelopment recently endorsed by the World Summit, 2002, inJohannesburg.In Africa we need to believe in self-reliance; we need to get out

of the shell of asking others to help us. Forty per cent of the articlesin this book are written by Africans alone or with colleagues ofother nationalities. We can build our own continent.I have known the editor of this book since he joined UNEP

some two years before I left it. I was impressed with his scientificknowledge and integrity.I do recommend this book to everybody who is still hesitating

about climate change. But, I recommend it more to my fellowAfricans.

Mostafa K. TolbaInternational Centre for Environment and DevelopmentCairo, Egypt

xxv






Foreword by Michael Zammit Cutajar

Global climate change is not just our greatest environmental chal-lenge. It is also a symptom of the unequal and unbalanced de-velopment of the global economy. Generated by the consumptionof the rich, it places an additional handicap on the survival of thepoor. The ‘creeping catastrophe’ of climate change is thus an addi-tional factor of inequity and stress in our global – and globalizing– community. Nowhere does this burden weigh more heavily thanon Africa’s fragile states and ecosystems, already under pressurefrom internal forces and from external shocks.The papers in this rich collection, patiently assembled by a

committed scientist, Pak Sum Low, range over the entire climatechange problematique, with a special emphasis on Africa. Onecan spin from them many of the strands in the web of the climatechange discussion:� We need to continually improve our understanding of the pro-cess of climate change, so as to anchor our responses moresoundly in science.

� We need to know what impact climate change will have onparticular regions or countries, so as to strengthen the politicalcase for these responses (by answering the question ‘What doesit mean for me?’) and also to better design adaptation strategies.

� Strengthening the resilience of poor rural communities to ex-ternal shocks is an obvious development strategy in develop-ing countries and also a sensible first defence against climatechange. This is a win–win synergy.

� The important interaction between climate change, drought anddesertification – a key linkage for many African countries – canpoint to other win–win opportunities in the domain of soil andforest management.

� Great benefits can be reaped – for the economy, ecology andhuman health – from ‘low-tech’ improvements in using biomassfuels, so widely relied upon in Africa.

� At the same time, even poor countries should safeguard theirlong-term development by opening the door to cleaner energyfutures, whether by preparing the switch from oil to gas or byexperimenting with photovoltaics. Clean energy strategies willneed to be backed by foreign investment, some of which can be

leveraged by theGlobalEnvironment Facility and projects underthe Clean Development Mechanism, including those financedby the World Bank’s carbon funds.

� While African countries are still low emitters on a global scale,improvement of their capacities to measure emissions and re-movals of greenhouse gases is a call upon external assistancethat should not go unheeded.

� So too is the strengthening of their capacities to integrate cli-matic considerations in their national development strategies, inparticular in their technological perspectives.

These topics feed into the ongoing formulation of a collec-tive strategy to protect the global climate, founded on the UnitedNations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its firstoffspring, the Kyoto Protocol. They weigh in the balance betweenmitigation and adaptation, between North and South.The intergovernmental negotiations on climate changemobilize

an array of defensive forces and arguments from all sides, inwhicheconomic ‘short-termism’ clouds the long-term vision of the com-mon good. Negotiators are engaged in the closed game of handingoff the perceived burden of emission reduction, instead ofworkingtogether to open up the technological and economic opportunitiesahead. The powers that guide them must still be insufficientlyconvinced of the climatic threat. Until this sinks in, much can bedone to underpin a dynamic and inclusive future global accord:deepen the science, improvemeasurement, prepare for adaptation,test-market instruments, explore new technologies and their appli-cations, and build institutional capacities where they are needed.For all their limitations, by design and by default, the targets andmechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol will drive such actions in theright direction.

Michael Zammit CutajarAmbassador for International EnvironmentalAffairs, Malta;Formerly Executive Secretary,UNFCCC SecretariatBonn, Germany

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Foreword by Mikko Pyhala

The reduction of the snowcap of the mighty Mount Kilimanjaroby four fifths over the last 90 years is one of the most immediatelydiscernible impacts of climate change in Africa, and irrefutableevidence of what is happening to our planet. Under the presenttrends, scientists tell us, the remaining ice fields on the mountainare likely to disappear between 2015 and 2020 (see Thompsonet al. (2002): Science, 298, 589–593). If this were the case, therewould be significant implications for the water resources of theAfrican countries that are dependent on the melted water comingfrom the mountain. The integrity of already fragile ecosystemswith their endemic species would suffer. In addition, a tropicalpeakwithout the snowcapwould be far less attractive to the touristswho are the source of income for many local people.Climate change will hit all nations directly or indirectly and its

warming impact is likely to be strongest in areas near the poles.However, of all continents, human suffering as a consequence ofclimate change may well be most dramatic in Africa. This regionhas probably never faced in its history as formidable a challenge asadaptation to climate change, requiring the migration or transfor-mation of not only natural (often already endangered) ecosystems,but also of agricultural production systems. The Africans can dolittle themselves to prevent the climate change, which has not, forthe most part, been caused by them.On the basis of equity, and in accordance with the principle of

common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabil-ities for all Parties to the United Nations Framework Conventionon Climate Change (UNFCCC), we in the North should not onlyfocus our efforts on mitigation of climate change through adher-ence to, and compliance with, the Kyoto Protocol, which entersinto force on 16 February 2005, but also on assisting poorer, i.e.non-Annex I countries, in promoting sustainable development,and sharing their burden of adaptation.The countries of the European Union have taken measures to

mitigate climate change, such as energy conservation, and the

development of renewable energy sources. They are also urgingapplication of environmental taxes. The transfer of appropriatetechnologies to non-Annex I Parties on affordable terms is a par-ticular question of survival for our humanity. Adequate financialresources must be provided to the least developed and developingcountries in order to address their specific capacity-building needsin relation to the effective implementation of the Convention. Thisbook provides important insights, for policy makers and develop-ment practitioners, into various aspects that are related to climatechange and Africa.I first got to know Dr Pak Sum Low in Nairobi, Kenya. We

worked together in theGlobal Environment Facility (GEF)Unit ofthe United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) from 1992to 1995. He was responsible for climate change and ozone de-pletion issues and provided basic scientific contributions to theGEF where UNEP had a normative and scientific role, includingsupport to the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) ofthe GEF. Dr Lowmade attempts to facilitate a far-sighted researchplan on the assessment of tropospheric ozone as a greenhouse gasinitiated by Professor Paul Crutzen and his colleagues in the Inter-national Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) for GEF fundingin 1993–1995, and again in 1998, though unfortunately withoutsuccess.I can only laud Dr Low for keeping his deep commitment with

Africa, even after his departure a few years ago, as evidenced byhis conceiving and editing this volume of scientifically meritedarticles by leading experts, on the ways in which Africa relatesto global climate change. This comprehensive volume will leavean outstanding mark on literature contributing to climate changescience, technology and policy in Africa.

Mikko PyhalaAmbassador, Asia and OceaniaHelsinki, Finland

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Foreword by Dieter H. Ehhalt

The African continent extends from about 35◦ N to about35◦ S latitude straddling the equator. This particular geographydetermines its climate regimes – mostly tropical and subtropicalwith extensive arid and semiarid zones around 20◦ N and 20◦ S.In some parts of the continent the regional climate, in particularannual rainfall, is highly variable. Many countries are prone torecurrent droughts, others to flooding. As a consequence Africais highly vulnerable to additional climate stresses. It is ironic thatthe continent which – owing to its low industrialization – has con-tributed least to the projectedman-induced global warming shouldbe suffering the most from it.The problem is exacerbated by population pressure: Africa is

the continent with the highest population growth rate in the world.It is further exacerbated by widespread poverty which limits thecapability for adaptation.It is therefore all the more important to take a close look at the

environmental and economic problems facing the African conti-nent in the context of global warming. This book is an important

step in this direction. It addresses many of the pertinent issuesin environmental science, such as the prediction of the regionalclimates, droughts and desertification, sea-level rise, biomassburning and its role in the emission of trace gases, and tropi-cal photochemistry. In similar detail it also addresses the ques-tions of sustainable energy development, and vulnerability andadaptation.Equally important, many of the articles are authored or co-

authored by African scientists. It underlines the progress that theAfrican scientific community has made in environmental and cli-mate research and its readiness to provide input and advice tothe policy-making process. The editor, Pak Sum Low, who has along-standing interest in environmental research, and his authorsare to be commended for putting together this fine volume.

Dieter H. EhhaltInstitute for Atmospheric ChemistryJulich, Germany

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Preface by Godwin O. P. Obasi

The climatic variations of the past, except probably the recentglacier retreat, have been essentially natural, with little or no hu-man influence. However, the present-day concern is that, for thefirst time in history, the human element has been added to the cli-matic equation. Thus, emissions of some of the greenhouse gasesinto the atmosphere from human activities have now modified theconcentrations of these gases quite significantly compared to pre-industrial levels. The anthropogenic gases include carbon dioxide(CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and halocarbon com-pounds. In recent years, therefore, the major debate worldwidehas centred on how real it is that the climate of the Earth is chang-ing, what the climate change expectations are, and what measureshumankind should take to avert the potential climate change andits impacts.Evidence is there to support concern over the state of global

climate. Indeed, since the middle to late nineteenth century, whena marked increase in CO2 from anthropogenic activities has beenmeasured, the observations show that over the last 100 years, theearth’s atmosphere has warmed by about 0.6 ◦C, while the globalsea level has risen by between 10 and 20 cm; spatial and tempo-ral patterns of precipitation are changing; night-time temperaturesover land have generally increased by double the increase of day-time temperatures; regional changes such as increased precipita-tion over land are evident; most of the world’s glaciers have beenretreating since 1850 while the Arctic ice is thinning, etc.It is expected that climate change will lead to undesirable con-

sequences in Africa. For example, with the projected sea-levelrise, the coastal nations sharing low-lying lagoonal coasts, suchas those of western, central and eastern Africa, will be susceptibleto further erosion of the beaches and damage to coral reefs, withsignificant adverse impacts on the tourism industry. Sea-level risewill also lead to the flooding of rich agricultural fields, such asthe rice paddies on the coastal plains in Gambia and Guinea. Insome parts of West Africa, coastal erosion is already reported tohave reached 30 m annually. A few studies indicate, for instance,that for a 1-metre rise in sea level, 2,000 km2 of land may belost to inundation in the lower Nile Delta, 6,000 km2 mostly in

the wetlands of Senegal, 1,800 km2 in Cote d’Ivoire, 2,600 km2

in Nigeria and 2,117 km2 in Tanzania. Some of the coastal ar-eas and low-lying islands could be rendered uninhabitable. In theabsence of any protective barriers, the estimation is that 1-metresea-level rise will lead to the displacement of the entire populationof Alexandria, 4 million people in the Nile Delta, 3.7 million inNigeria and up to 180,000 people in Senegal. The projected risein sea level will also adversely affect freshwater availability in thecoastal areas due to the intrusion of saline water upstream of therivers and into the freshwater aquifers. Some recent observationsindicate that salt-water contamination has been observed 80 kmupstream of the Zambezi River and up to 120 km upstream ofthe Gambia River during the dry season. Another phenomenonthat will affect freshwater availability in the coastal regions is thedecrease in the run-off of a number of rivers, such as the Nile, theZambezi and most of the large rivers in the Sahel.Already, there are serious concerns that climate change will

spell more serious problems for Africa. Catastrophic droughts ofthe Sahel in the late 1960s and early 1970s heightened the concernfor potential climate change, while recent weather- and climate-related natural disasters impacting on the lives and property ofpeople are grave enough to focus the attention of scientists andpolicy makers alike on various issues concerning climate change.A few examples of such events in the region include the devas-tating floods in Mozambique in 2000, which reduced its grossnational product by 11.6 per cent. In the West African subregion,devastating floods have been reported in major cities. A severedrought has been ravaging many parts of Africa in recent decades.Drought resulting from rain failure led to food shortage in theGreater Horn of Africa in 2002, which has in turn caused a serioushumanitarian crisis involving about 30 million people. Severetropical cyclones are a constant threat to the Indian Ocean Islandcountries.Climate change is also expected to lead to a more vigorous hy-

drological cycle, with the likely results that more severe droughtswill occur in some places and floods in others. Small changesin the mean climate can produce relatively large changes in the

xxix






xxx PREFACES

frequency of extremeweather events, such as floods and droughts.Over the coastal zone, a higher sea level combined with increasedstorm surges and a high tide could lead to extensive coastal flood-ing as regularly occurs inLagos, the latest being inMay2003.Overthe south-west Indian Ocean, tropical cyclones remain a constantthreat to the island countries and to those of the south-eastern coastof the African continent.Among the other most pressing challenges facing Africa is the

alleviation of poverty, hunger and food insecurity and the sus-tainablemanagement of agriculture and natural resources. Indeed,agriculture is the sector most sensitive to variability in the weather

and climate. It is, therefore, necessary that further work be doneto ensure that these concerns are dealt with through improved re-search and adequate planning, in the interests of present and futuregenerations. This publication will go a long way in raising aware-ness on climate change in Africa, thus constituting a worthwhileeffort in addressing the problems of climate, climate variabilityand change that have implications for social and economic devel-opment for Africa.

Godwin O. P. ObasiFormerly Secretary-GeneralWorld Meteorological OrganizationGeneva, Switzerland






Preface by Wulf Killmann

The key to food security is regular access to food, in a contextwhere many factors seem to be competing to make its supplyscarce and irregular. In Africa, as in most of the world, the vari-ability of climate over seasons, years and decades, has been adominant factor. This was dramatically illustrated by the latestdrought episode in the West African Sahel between the 1960sand the late 1980s. Some papers recently published suggest a linkbetween the drought and atmospheric pollution in the developedworld, a reminder that human activities can affect climate, locallyand globally, at many scales.Over the last two decades, war has overtaken climate fluctuation

as the dominant factor in food insecurity, particularly in Africawhere civil unrest andwar have killed people, driven themoff theirland and led to the creation of large refugee settlements. However,even humanitarian crises must be seen in their climatic context,as many tense and unstable situations have been created by highfood prices due to drought. Many farmers are forced off the landat harvest or planting times, and many choose to grow cassava,safely concealed in the ground, rather than the conspicuous maizecobs that are so attractive to refugees and soldiers. Comparedwith cereals, cassava is drought resistant but poor in proteins, sothat some farmers’ attempts to ensure food production actuallycontribute to malnutrition.Africa remains the continent where climate variability most

directly affects people’s well-being. This is why Africa is also thecontinent where climate change will add most to the uncertaintiesand risks associated with farming and ranching, because largeland areas are currently semi-arid and exposed to desertification.Deforestation spreads fast, few farmers have access to markets –

except their local market – and to alternative sources of income,and populations are growing faster than resources in semi-arid andhighland areas.Ever since 1988, when FAO established an Interdepartmental

Working Group on Climate Change, the Organization has activelycontributed to the climate change debate by assisting its membersand collaborating with the IPCC and the UNFCCC in areas of itsmandate, such as the definition of forest-related terms. FAO alsotries to ensure that the voice of the crop farmers, pastoralists andthose living off the forest, is heard in international circles.This publication is one of the very fewwhich is specifically ded-

icated to climate change and Africa. It provides a comprehensivecoverage of climate change science as applied to the continent,the role of the continent as a contributor to climate change butalso as a likely victim of the changes. It further covers the role ofenergy policies and the potential of energy from biomass, as wellas the primordial role of education in increasing awareness and, inthe longer term, the response capacity of individuals and nationalinstitutions.By lending its support to this book, FAO hopes to contribute

to building greater climate change awareness, not only on theAfrican continent, but also among scientists and decision makersin the developed world, and in particular, hopes to attract moresupport for activities dealing with the climate change related risksand opportunities faced by Africa.

Wulf KillmannFood and Agriculture OrganizationRome, Italy

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Preface by Salvano Briceno

Droughts, floods, storms and other climatic phenomena are natu-ral features of planet Earth and have been occurring for millions ofyears. The earliest humans, cradled in Africa, learned over timehow the seasonal rains came and went. They observed how insome years the rains could be excessive, deficient or untimely,sometimes with disastrous consequences, and gradually they de-veloped ways to better cope with the uncertainties. Episodes ofsignificant climate shifts stretching for tens and hundreds of yearsalso occurred and forcedmajor shifts in the locations and activitiesof societies.Today, our understanding of the rains is scientific and extensive,

yet the continent suffers more and more from the vagaries of theclimate. Drought in particular affects millions of people each year– people who are often already suffering from poverty and diseaseand who are least able to resist or cope with the added stress offood and water shortages. And on the horizon there is the loomingthreat that climate change may make matters even worse.For many, there seems no escape from the repeated impacts

of climatic hazards. But closer examination shows that disastersoccur onlywhen the hazard is coupled to human vulnerability. Sur-prisingly, it is the human situation that mainly causes the problem– especially populations in risky and degraded locations withoutthe means to understand and avoid or manage the risks. Disastersare thus a manifestation of poverty, inadequate governance, mea-gre public services, and unsustainable development. This insightis a powerful one, for it shows that we must address a complex setof socio-economic and environmental factors in order to reducethe risk of disasters.It is also now clear that the substantial increase in disasters

over recent decades has been mostly due to changes in socio-

economic factors, such as population increases in high-risk areasand land degradation, rather than to changes in climate, thoughsome observed changes in climate, such as the relatively greaterand stronger El Nino episodes over the last 30 years, will have ex-acerbated disaster situations in affected countries. The prospectsof increased weather hazards for the future reported by the IPCCare of very great concern, and add even more urgency to the press-ing immediate need to reduce vulnerabilities and to better manageexisting climate variability and extremes.Experience shows that informed communities, backed up with

strong government action, can identify and substantially reducetheir risks. African institutions are evolving to systematically andregionally deal with disaster reduction and disaster management,but the widespread famines of recent years show that much moreremains to be done.The United Nations General Assembly has called for urgent

action to stem the rising impacts of disasters, especially on thefragile economies of its developing country members. While cli-matic hazards will be with us for the foreseeable future, the humanvulnerability that leads to disaster need not be. The InternationalStrategy forDisasterReduction (ISDR)Secretariat and its partnersstand ready to assist the efforts of African governments, regionalbodies, development organizations, humanitarian organizations,and others to more effectively grapple with the growing problemof risk and disasters in the region. This book provides a valuablecontribution of knowledge relevant to this important task.

Salvano BricenoUnited Nations Inter-Agency Secretariat of the InternationalStrategy for Disaster ReductionGeneva, Switzerland

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