Avoiding the unintended consequences of climate change mitigation for African river basins

Abstract Emerging climate change mitigation policies focus on the implementation of global measures relying on carbon prices to attain rapid emissions reductions, with limited consideration for the impacts of global policies at local scales. Here, we use the Zambezi River Basin in Southern Africa to demonstrate how local multisector dynamics across interconnected Water-Energy-Food (WEF) systems are impacted by global climate change mitigation policies. Our analysis provides quantitative evidence of the unintended vulnerabilities that emerge for this basin across a broad array of potential climate and socio-economic futures. Our results indicate that climate change mitigation policies related to land use change emissions can have negative side effects on local water demands, generating increased risks for failures across all the components of the WEF systems in the Zambezi River Basin. Analogous vulnerabilities could impact many river basins in Southern and Western Africa. It is critical to connect global climate change mitigation policies to local regional dynamics to better navigate the full range of possible future scenarios while supporting policy makers in prioritizing sustainable mitigation and adaptation solutions.