ICTs for Climate Change Adaptation in Africa

Like other regions of the world, Africa
is beginning to experience the impacts of human-induced
climate change. These observed changes in climate parameters
have not occurred uniformly across Africa. Mitigation is
concerned with reducing the level of greenhouse gas
emissions in the Earth's atmosphere that are the
principal causes of climate change. Adaptation is concerned
not with prevention but, in the words of the
intergovernmental panel on climate change, with adjustments
in human and or natural systems to reduce adverse impacts or
take advantage of opportunities that may arise from it.
Information and communication technology (ICT) have had an
increasing impact on economic and social development over
the past two decades, resulting from their capacity to
generate and disseminate information, to facilitate the
coordination of different actors in and beyond government,
and to make government, business, and development processes
more efficient. ICTs also have a complex relationship with
sustainability and with the underlying cause of climate
change. This relationship can be described in terms of the
effects of ICTs: first order (direct) effects concern the
impacts which ICTs have on climate change, in particular the
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the production, use and
disposal of communications equipment and services,
accounting for between 2 and 2.5 percent of global
emissions. Second order (indirect) effects concern the role
ICTs can play in reducing emissions resulting from other
industrial sectors, by adopting ICTs to improve efficiency
and production. Third order (societal) effects result from
large-scale changes in social and economic behavior
resulting from widespread use of ICTs, including changing
patterns of trade, production and consumption, and global to
local engagement of citizens in decision making.