ABSTRACT
It has been commonly affirmed that climate change has intensified serious environmental problems that threaten lives and livelihoods in Africa. In view of this, increasing emissions offer a strong illustration of how sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) can be more vulnerable to climate-sensitive health risks. Hence, the study assesses how life expectancy is affected by climate change in 32 SSA countries between 2005 and 2020. With the use of panel fixed effects (FE) and dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation, findings indicate that an increase in climate change (using carbon dioxide emissions) is associated with a reduction in life expectancy at birth, suggesting that reducing emissions of greenhouse gases will result in improved human health and longevity. Thus, in the absence of sustainable adaptation measures, the vulnerability of populations to extreme weather incidents could be exacerbated by climate change. It is therefore suggested that promoting improved access to weather and climate services is critical to enhancing human resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change.
