Literature From the Congo Basin Offers Ways to Address the Climate Crisis
The African continent is responsible for only 2–3% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industrial sources. But it’s alarmingly suffering from the effects of the climate crisis, as reports from the UN and others show. On the positive side, Africa has a huge potential for climate mitigation, especially thanks to its tropical rainforests.
Andrew Amadi
“Africa has an advantage that it has never had before. The cheapest electricity in the world today, is daytime solar in Africa.
If we have the potential for the cheapest electricity, we also have the potential for the cheapest transportation. 40 percent of the national reserves of foreign currencies are used to purchase and import petroleum products. If a large amount of that cost is alleviated in African countries, it creates a system that is immune to fossil fuel-based inflation.”
New Forms Of Urban Planning Are Emerging In Africa
Rapid urban growth and an increasing number of climate change related disasters, such as the recent floods in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, have put the importance of sound urban planning in Africa in the spotlight.
Urban plans are seen as the key to achieving inclusive, safe and sustainable cities. But urban scholars have argued for decades that for plans to be effective we need to move away from the traditional way of doing things. This requires dropping a top down approach – master planning – and opting instead for strategic forms of planning that are targeted, flexible and participatory.
Wildlife Don’t Recognize Borders, Nor Does Climate Change. Conservation Should Keep Up
A set of studies focused on the China-Vietnam border demonstrates that the impacts of climate change will make transboundary conservation even more important for endangered species like the Cao-Vit gibbon and tiger geckos.
Conservation in transboundary areas is already challenging because of physical barriers, like fences and walls, as well as non-physical ones, such as different legal systems or conservation approaches between countries on either side.