Climate and environmental change and the potential for greening African cities

Abstract

Green economic investment has become a tool for technological innovation, energy efficiency, employment generation and environmental improvement that simultaneously mitigates and/or promotes some forms of adaptation to climate change. There is no single recipe for greening urban economies and increasing their environmental change resilience, but effective and flexible governance appears important. Many green economic measures can potentially promote prosperity and environmental resilience in different urban contexts. The links are complex and sometimes problematic. Conflicts of vision, interest and strategy may be deep-seated, leading to delays, sub-optimal outcomes or failure. Sometimes, too, unintended consequences adversely affect accessibility or equity. This article surveys the state of the art in relation to African towns and cities, illustrated with pertinent examples. Although urban greening is less advanced than in other regions, partly because of limited industrialisation, such investment in Africa has the potential to address longstanding development-environment problems, quality of life and livelihood sustainability and well as mitigating and adapting to climate change.