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PrintThe issue - climate change and poverty
Photo: Ami Vitale/Oxfam
Australia is responsible for the emission of 60 times more carbon per person than Bangladesh yet the impact of climate change will fall more heavily on the poor in Bangladesh and other developing countries than communities in developed nations.
Poverty makes people vulnerable and limits their choices. If crops fail, subsistence farmers have few or no alternative means to provide food for their families. Natural disasters can overwhelm a poor household, destroying its ability to cope.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPPC, February 2007) projected the following changes due to climate change by the end of this century:
- Sea level increases of up to 59cm
- Global temperature increases of up to 4.0°C
- Increasingly acidic oceans impacting on fish stocks and marine life
- Shrinking snow cover and glaciers affecting water supplies
- More frequent droughts and heat waves
- More intense tropical cyclones, heavier rains and more natural disasters
- Changes in wind, rain, and temperature patterns affecting agriculture and livestock production and access to water in tropical and subtropical regions
All these impacts will be most dramatic for the poor in developing countries. In 2000, leaders of 189 nations agreed on eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to ensure the halving of extreme poverty by 2015. Unless urgent steps are taken to help poor people adapt to climate change, and unless these actions are integrated in national strategies for poverty eradication and sustainable development, we will not meet the goals set for 2015.
" The poorest developing countries will be hit earliest and hardest by climate change, even though they have contributed little to causing the problem. Their low incomes make it difficult to finance adaptation. The international community has an obligation to support them in adapting to climate change. Without such support there is a serious risk that development progress will be undermined. "
- The Stern Review, 2006