Climate change represents a clear and present danger to the development prospects of Africa. African countries are going to have to adapt to protect their peoples from the harsh impacts of climate change and to ensure that they are not derailed from their current development pathways.

With a view of COP19 in Warsaw and beyond, this report shows the wide range of adverse impacts of climate change in Africa and assesses the balance of economic costs, as a function of a range of scenarios including both successful and failed global mitigation efforts, and strong compared to weak implementation of adaptation measures. The economic cost calculations are necessarily limited in nature. While they do not cover all economic costs and climate impacts, and also include non-monetary damages to a very limited extent, they do serve the purpose of showing clearly that loss and damage is a crucial issue for Africa’s future.