The report starts from one observation: Gabon's main challenge is to achieve stronger, job-creating growth to prepare the post-oil economy. The country plays an important role in climate change mitigation thanks to its forests, but it remains exposed: projections point to average warming of 1.34 °C by mid-century and to a sea level some 0.2 metres higher, with effects on the coastlines of Libreville and Port-Gentil.
Two growth scenarios
Under the business-as-usual scenario, GDP would grow by about 2.4 percent a year between 2025 and 2050, for GDP per capita of US$11,000 in 2050 and a poverty rate of 10.2 percent (US$6.85 a day line). Under the reform scenario (governance, business climate, access to credit, infrastructure, diversification), growth would reach about 4.7 percent a year, GDP per capita US$20,000 and the poverty rate 1.8 percent in 2050. Annual climate-related losses would nevertheless remain between 3.1 and 4.8 percent of GDP in this scenario, because diversification would rely on exposed sectors such as agriculture, timber and fisheries.
Adaptation
Heat stress would bite first into labour productivity; then come crop yields, damaged infrastructure and the spread of climate-sensitive diseases. According to the report, targeted adaptation measures (cooling equipment, heat-resistant crops, irrigation, road rehabilitation, urban and coastal zoning, flood protection) could bring losses down from 5.3 to 3.8 percent of GDP, at an estimated cost of 0.09 percent of GDP a year until 2050 and a net annual gain of 1.5 percent of GDP by then.
