IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/esr/wpaper/wp351.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Civil War, Climate Change and Development: A Scenario Study for Sub-Saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Devitt, Conor
  • Tol, Richard S. J.

Abstract

We construct a model of development, civil war, and climate change. There are multiple interactions. Economic growth reduces the probability of civil war and the vulnerability to climate change. Climate change increases the probability of civil war. The impacts of climate change, civil war, and civil war in the neighbouring countries reduce economic growth. The model has two potential poverty traps ? a climate-change-induced one and a civil-war-induced one ? and the two poverty traps may reinforce one another. We calibrate the model to Sub-Saharan Africa and conduct a double Monte Carlo analysis accounting for both parameter uncertainty and stochasticity. We find the following. Although we use the SRES scenarios as our baseline, and thus assume rapid economic growth in Africa and convergence of African living standards to the rest of the world, the impact of civil war and climate change (ignored in SRES) are sufficiently strong to keep a number of countries in Africa in deep poverty with a high probability. Other countries enjoy exponential growth; and some countries may either be trapped in poverty or experience rapid growth. The SRES scenarios were wrong to ignore the impact of climate change and civil war on economic development.

Suggested Citation

  • Devitt, Conor & Tol, Richard S. J., 2010. "Civil War, Climate Change and Development: A Scenario Study for Sub-Saharan Africa," Papers WP351, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp351
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esri.ie/pubs/WP351.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frances Ruane & Xiaoheng Zhang, 2007. "Location Choices of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Europe after 1992," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp220, IIIS.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Torsten Grothmann & Maximilian Petzold & Patrick Ndaki & Vincent Kakembo & Bernd Siebenhüner & Michael Kleyer & Pius Yanda & Naledzani Ndou, 2017. "Vulnerability Assessment in African Villages under Conditions of Land Use and Climate Change: Case Studies from Mkomazi and Keiskamma," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-30, June.
    2. Agraw Ali Beshir & Jaemin Song, 2021. "Urbanization and its impact on flood hazard: the case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 109(1), pages 1167-1190, October.
    3. Timothy Allen Carter & Daniel Jay Veale, 2015. "The timing of conflict violence: Hydraulic behavior in the Ugandan civil war," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(4), pages 370-394, September.
    4. Richard Tol, 2013. "Low probability, high impact: the implications of a break-up of China for carbon dioxide emissions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 117(4), pages 961-970, April.
    5. Richard S.J. Tol, 2012. "The Implications of a Break-Up of China for Carbon Dioxide Emissions," Working Paper Series 3912, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Pedro Zorrilla-Miras & Estrella López-Moya & Marc J. Metzger & Genevieve Patenaude & Almeida Sitoe & Mansour Mahamane & Sá Nogueira Lisboa & James S. Paterson & Elena López-Gunn, 2021. "Understanding Complex Relationships between Human Well-Being and Land Use Change in Mozambique Using a Multi-Scale Participatory Scenario Planning Process," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-21, November.
    7. Suthan Krishnarajan, 2019. "Crisis? What crisis? Measuring economic crisis in political science," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 1479-1493, May.
    8. Exenberger Andreas & Pondorfer Andreas, 2013. "Climate Change and the Risk of Mass Violence: Africa in the 21st Century," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(3), pages 381-392, December.
    9. Drago Bergholt & Päivi Lujala, 2012. "Climate-related natural disasters, economic growth, and armed civil conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 49(1), pages 147-162, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard Tol, 2011. "Regulating knowledge monopolies: the case of the IPCC," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 827-839, October.
    2. Alan Barrett & Adele Bergin & Elish Kelly, 2011. "Estimating the Impact of Immigration on the Wages in Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 42(1), pages 01-26.
    3. Yohe, Gary W. & Tol, Richard S. J. & Anthoff, David, 2009. "Discounting for Climate Change," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-22.
    4. Nolan, Anne, 2008. "A Dynamic Analysis of Household Car Ownership in Ireland," Papers WP269, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    5. McGuinness, Seamus & Sloane, Peter J., 2011. "Labour market mismatch among UK graduates: An analysis using REFLEX data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 130-145, February.
    6. Mavromaras, Kostas & McGuinness, Seamus & O?Leary, Nigel & Sloane, Peter & Fok, Yin King, 2009. "Job Mismatches and Labour Market Outcomes," Papers WP314, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    7. Nicola Commins & Anne Nolan, 2010. "Car Ownership and Mode of Transport to Work in Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 41(1), pages 43-75.
    8. Christopher T. Whelan & Brian Nolan & Bertrand Maitre, 2008. "Measuring Material Deprivation in the Enlarged EU," Papers WP249, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    9. Tol, Richard S. J., 2011. "Modified Ramsey Discounting for Climate Change," Papers WP368, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    10. Thomas Conefrey & John Fitz Gerald, 2010. "Managing Housing Bubbles In Regional Economies Under Emu: Ireland And Spain," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 211(1), pages 91-108, January.
    11. Macagno, Giulia & Loureiro, Maria L. & Nunes, Paulo A.L.D. & Tol, Richard S.J., 2009. "Assessing the Impact of Biodiversity on Tourism Flows: A model for Tourist Behaviour and its Policy Implications," Sustainable Development Papers 50406, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    12. Anne Nolan, 2009. "Eligibility for Free Primary Care and Avoidable Hospitalisations in Ireland," Papers WP296, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    13. Schiffbauer, Marc & Siedschlag, Iulia & Ruane, Frances, 2017. "Do foreign mergers and acquisitions boost firm productivity?," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1124-1140.
    14. John Curtis & Sean Lyons & Abigail O'Callaghan-Platt, 2011. "Managing household waste in Ireland: behavioural parameters and policy options," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(2), pages 245-266.
    15. Luke M. Brander & Katrin Rehdanz & Richard S. J. Tol & Pieter J. H. Van Beukering, 2012. "The Economic Impact Of Ocean Acidification On Coral Reefs," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(01), pages 1-29.
    16. Bergin, Adele & Conefrey, Thomas & FitzGerald, John & Kearney, Ide, 2009. "The Behaviour of the Irish Economy: Insights from the HERMES Macro-Economic Model," Papers WP287, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    17. Leahy, Eimear & Tol, Richard S.J., 2011. "An estimate of the value of lost load for Ireland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1514-1520, March.
    18. Daiju Narita & Richard Tol & David Anthoff, 2010. "Economic costs of extratropical storms under climate change: an application of FUND," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(3), pages 371-384.
    19. Christopher T. Whelan & Mario Lucchini & Maurizio Pisati & Maitre, Bertrand, 2009. "Understanding the Socio-Economic Distribution and Consequences of Patterns of Multiple Deprivation: An Application of Self-Organising Maps," Papers WP302, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    20. Mavromaras, Kostas & McGuinness, Seamus, 2012. "Overskilling dynamics and education pathways," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 619-628.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    civil war/climate change/economic development/Climate change/growth/Impacts of climate change/poverty/scenarios/uncertainty;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp351. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Burns (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esriiie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.