Abstract:
The Conference of Party [COP] 26 proposed a forty-five percent (45%) reduction in
carbon emissions by all countries before the year 2030. The measure is expected to
reduce the world’s temperature by 1.50C and disasters. However, there is no empirical
study to ascertain the direct effect of the carbon reduction on disaster reduction. Also,
the generic 45% carbon reduction measure does not consider the possible effect on
economic growth and poverty especially in developing countries. Hence this study
sought to assess the effect of the 45% reduction in carbon emission on disaster
occurrences, economic growth and poverty across the various continents of the world.
The study collected secondary data from several international institutions and adopted
the exploratory and inferential spatial statistics techniques. Results indicated that
disasters in Oceanic and Africa countries are more likely to reduce by 51% and 9.6%
respectively given the 45% reduction in carbon emission. GDP growth rate is
expected to decrease by 0.11% while monetary poverty will increase by 0.96% in
Africa but the opposite will persist in Europe and America with reduction in carbon
emission. The study concludes that, though the 45% reduction is more likely to
reduce disasters, but with negative consequence on economic growth and poverty in
developing countries as such the generic 45% should be reassessed based on countries
level of development. Also, developed countries should support Africa and Oceania
states with the needed climate funds to improve their resilience to climate change.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Geography Education,
Faculty of Social Sciences, Submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Geography with Education)
in the University of Education, Winneba