Climate change will cost poor countries billions of dollars, studies say. Adapting economies and maintaining infrastructure under global warming will cost developing countries dear, and resentment is building as rich countries delay in providing finance

A truck stuck in flood waters near Mauri, Mozambique. Research suggests that every African country will have to pay an extra $22m-$54m a year just to keep its already substandard road infrastructure in today’s condition. Photograph: Tim Zielenbach/AP

Africa, notoriously, has the worst roads in the world because its extremes of sun and rain bake them dry or leave them cratered and impassable for months at a time. The whole continent, which is physically larger than China, western Europe, India and the US together, still only has 171,000 km of all-weather roads - less than a country like Poland.

Now it can expect an extra $183bn bill just to maintain its few paved roads over the next 60 years because of the impact of climate change. According to a UN university team of economists, every African country will have to pay an extra $22m-$54m a year just to keep its already substandard road infrastructure in today's condition. The bill to upgrade and maintain Africa's many millions of miles of secondary roads and tracks, which can be expected to deteriorate even further with climate change, is not even considered.

The figures are not exact, but show how even the minimum of infrastructural improvement – considered a prerequisite for economic development – will be reined in in poor countries unless money is made available for them to adapt to climate change, and unless rich countries lessen the chances of runaway warming by reducing emissions quickly.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jun/15/climate-change-cost-poor-countries-billions