Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/81023 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2011/90
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Ethiopia is powering ahead with an ambitious energy development strategy, highly reliant on abundant hydropower potential. A changing climate, including uncertain water supply, however, may pose a salient challenge to meeting expected targets. Bridging the modeling gaps between climate, energy, and economics, and effectively transforming climate changes into economic measures, is an emerging inter-disciplinary field as nations attempt to position themselves for an uncertain future. Such a framework is adopted here to assess energy production and adaptation costs for four climate change scenarios over 2010 - 49. Scenarios that favor a drying trend country-wide may lead to losses of 130 - 200 terawatt hours over the 40-year period, translating to adaptation costs of US$ 2 - 4 billion, compared to a no climate change scenario. Even given these potential losses, energy development utilizing hydropower appears economically reasonable from this deterministic, sector-independent evaluation. This development is desperately needed, independent of future climate change trends, with the hope of appreciably reducing vulnerability to variability.
Subjects: 
Ethiopia
energy development
hydropower
climate change
economics
JEL: 
Q25
Q43
Q54
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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