A new study published by the World Bank Group on Sunday predicts that without climate-smart development and strict reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that will decrease the impacts of climate change in developing countries, global warming could force more than 100 million additional people below the poverty line by 2030 – bringing the total close to 1 billion people in a worst-case scenario. “What the report shows is that one of these can not be addressed [without] the other”.
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The report finds that the poorest people are more exposed than the average population to climate-related shocks such as floods, droughts, and heat waves, and they lose much more of their wealth when they are hit.
Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty differs from previous efforts by looking at the poverty impacts of climate change at the household level, rather than at the level of national economies.
“We have a window of opportunity to achieve our poverty objectives in the face of climate change, provided we make wise policy choices now”, said Stephane Hallegatte, a senior World Bank economist who led the team that prepared the report. “This report sends a clear message that ending poverty will not be possible unless we take strong action to reduce the threat of climate change on poor people and dramatically reduce harmful emissions”, he said in a statement.
But policy shifts need not threaten short-term progress against poverty provided they are well-designed and global support is made available, it added.
A dog runs past a rundown house in the sea water that flooded the village Eita, Kiribati, on September 29, 2015.
What exactly is at stake?
The number of people with malaria could reach 5 percent, or 150 million people, by 2030, the report says. For example, after 1998’s Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras, the poor lost three times more than non-poor people.
The global community can help by providing financial and technological support for things like insurance schemes, crop research, public transport and weather forecasting systems, the report said. “When they are affected, they are alone in the struggle to recover”. Extreme weather changes could lead to a significant decline in crops, which would in turn spike agricultural prices and jeopardize food security in regions like sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Additionally, the report warns that rising temperatures could drive up food prices in large parts of Africa as much as 12 percent by 2030. In 2015, the bank puts the number of poor at 702 million people.
The pessimistic scenario is called “pessimistic” for a reason. This followed the adoption in 2000 of the Millennium Development Goals, which are now the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 goals discussed in 2012 to combat poverty, inequality, and climate change by 2030.
And there are many success stories. Addressing climate change will be essential to ending poverty and hunger and providing access to energy around the globe. Countries should upgrade their flood defenses, develop early warning systems and climate-resistant crops, and improve socioeconomic conditions by increasing incomes and providing universal health care.
“For the short term, only adaptation can help”, said Hallegatte. That’s why we need to act now.
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Beyond 2030, the world’s ability to adapt to unabated climate change will be limited, warned the report, released ahead of a United Nations climate summit from November 30-Dec.
