Climate change, economic growth and poverty in Zambia

Climate variability poses a significant challenge for most of Africa, particularly given the continent‟s reliance on rain-fed agriculture. This uncertainty is aggravated by global climate change. We develop an integrated biophysical and dynamic economywide modeling framework that explicitly links uncertain future climate realizations to economic outcomes. Results for Zambia indicate that climate variability significantly reduces economic growth with adverse effects on poverty. For example, under the expected scenario, climate variability will reduce economic growth by 0.4 percent per year over the next ten years and pull 300,000 people into poverty. Damages are much larger under „worse case‟ scenarios and during extreme weather events. Uncertainty over future climate implies that economic damages vary widely across climate change scenarios. However, results suggest that the effects of climate change over the intermediate-term will remain significantly smaller than those caused by current climate variability.