The region should also tap its underexploited renewable resources, particularly hydropower, to meet increasing energy demand and boost both growth and development.

"It is essential that climate change be viewed as a major development opportunity for Africa given the anticipated increase in the energy requirements as growth accelerates," the Bank's managing director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told a public lecture at the London School of Economics.

"Agricultural carbon sequestration could generate annual revenues of close to $1.5 billion," she said, adding that agricultural land management would need to be included in future climate pacts so Africa could benefit from the carbon market.

Carbon sequestration is the uptake and storage of carbon, for example by trees and plants which absorb carbon dioxide.

By 2030 an estimated 5.5-6 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent a year could be mitigated by agriculture with about 89 percent achieved by soil carbon sequestration, according to a U.N. climate change paper on agriculture last year.

Okonjo-Iweala added that only 8 percent of the continent's hydropower was currently being exploited, and that increasing the used of its renewable resources would help Africa meet growing demand for energy as growth picks up.