Climate change and poverty are deeply intertwined because climate change disproportionally affects poor people in low-income communities and developing countries around the world. The impoverished have a higher chance of experiencing the ill-effects of climate change due to the increased exposure and vulnerability. Vulnerability represents the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change including climate variability and extremes.
Climate change highly exacerbates existing inequalities through its effects on health, the economy, and human rights. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth National Climate Assessment Report found that low-income individuals and communities are more exposed to environmental hazards and pollution and have a harder time recovering from the impacts of climate change. For example, it takes longer for low-income communities to be rebuilt after natural disasters. According to the United Nations Development Programme, developing countries suffer 99% of the casualties attributable to climate change.
Different countries' impact on climate change also varies based on their stage of development; the 50 least developed countries of the world account for a 1% contribution to the worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases, which are a byproduct of global warming. Additionally, 92% of accumulated greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to countries from the Global North, which comprise 19% of the global population, while 8% of emissions are attributed to countries from the Global South, who bear the heaviest consequences of increasing global temperature.
Climate and distributive justice questions are central to climate change policy options. Many policy tools can be employed to solve environmental problems such as cost-benefit analysis; however, such tools usually do not deal with such issues because they often ignore questions of just distribution and the environmental effects on human rights.
Connection to poverty
A 2020 World Bank paper estimated that between 32 million and 132 million additional people will be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030 due to climate change. The cycle of poverty exacerbates the potential negative impacts of climate change. This phenomenon is defined when poor families become trapped in poverty for at least three generations, have limited to no resources access, and are disadvantaged in means of breaking the cycle. While in rich countries, coping with climate change has largely been a matter of dealing with longer, hotter summers, and observing seasonal shifts; for those in poverty, weather-related disasters, bad harvest, or even a family member falling ill can provide crippling economic shocks.United Nations Development Programme. 2006. "Human Development Report: Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty, and the Global Water Crisis." New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. (pp. 25–199).
Besides these economic shocks, the widespread famine, drought, and potential humanistic shocks could affect the entire nation. High levels of poverty and low levels of human development limit the capacity of poor households to manage climate risks. With limited access to formal insurance, low incomes, and meager assets, poor households have to deal with climate-related shocks under highly constrained conditions.IPCC. 2001. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. Online at www.ipcc.ch (Accessed October 23, 2010) In addition, poorer households are heavily impacted by environmental shocks due to the lack of post-shock support from friends and family, the financial system, and social safety nets.Hallegatte, S., Rozenberg, J. Climate change through a poverty lens. Nature Clim Change 7, 250–256 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3253.
Relationship to environmental racism As global climate has changed progressively over the past several decades, it has collided with environmental racism. The overlap of these two phenomena, has disproportionately affected different communities and populations throughout the world due to disparities in socio-economic status. This is especially evident in the Global South where, for example, byproducts of global climate change such as increasingly frequent and severe landslides resulting from more heavy rainfall events in Quito, Ecuador force people to also deal with profound socio-economic ramifications like the destruction of their homes and death. Countries such as Ecuador often contribute relatively little to climate change in terms of carbon dioxide emissions but have far fewer resources to ward off the negative localized impacts of climate change. This issue occurs globally, where nations in the global south bear the burden of natural disasters and weather extremes despite contributing little to the global carbon footprint.
While people living in the Global South have typically been impacted most by the effects of climate change, people of color in the Global North also face similar situations in several areas. The issues of climate change and communities that are in a danger zone are not limited to North America or the United States either. Environmental racism and climate change coincide with one another. Rising seas affect poor areas such as Kivalina, Alaska, and Thibodaux, Louisiana, and countless other places around the globe.
Impacts of environmental racism due to climate change become particularly evident during climate disasters. Following the 1995 Chicago heat wave, scholars analyzed the effects of environmental racism on the unequal death rate between races during this crisis. Direct impacts of this phenomenon can be observed through the lack of adequate warning and the failure to utilize pre-existing cooling centers which disadvantaged impoverished groups, and caused particularly devastating effects in Chicago's poorest areas. Poorer individuals are more susceptible to harm from climate change because they have less access to resources to help them recover from natural disasters. With the number of climate disasters increasing dramatically over the past 50 years, the impacts of environmental racism has increased, and social movements calling for environmental justice have grown in turn.
Atmospheric colonization The concept of 'atmospheric colonization' refers to the observation that 92% of accumulated greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to countries from the Global North, comprising 19% of global population, while only 8% of emissions are attributable to countries from the Global South that will bear the heaviest consequences of increasing global temperatures.
A 2020 World Bank paper estimated that between 32 million and 132 million additional people will be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030 due to climate change.
Reversing development Climate change is globally encompassing and can reverse development in some areas in the following ways.
Agricultural production and food security
There has been considerable research comparing the interrelated processes of climate change on agriculture.IPCC. 2007. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (Accessed on November 2, 2010). Climate change affects rainfall, temperature, and water availability for agriculture in vulnerable areas. It also affects agriculture in several ways including productivity, agricultural practices, environmental effects, and distribution of rural space.Schneider, S.H. et al. (2007). "Assessing key vulnerabilities and the risk from climate change. In: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [M.L. Parry et al. (eds.)"]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., and New York, N.Y., U.S.A.. pp. 779–810. Retrieved 2009-05-20. Extreme events such as droughts, disease, and pests will be heavily impacted resulting in an increase of food prices from 3-84% by the year 2050. Additional numbers affected by malnutrition could rise to 600 million by 2080. Climate change could worsen the prevalence of hunger through direct negative effects on production and indirect impacts on purchasing powers.
Water insecurity Of the 3 billion growth in population projected worldwide by the mid-21st century, the majority will be born in countries already experiencing water shortages. As the overall climate of the earth warms, changes in the nature of global rainfall, evaporation, snow, and runoff flows will be affected.Miller, Kathleen. 1997. Climate Variability, Climate Change and Western Water. Report to the Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission, NTIS, Springfield, VA. http://www.isse.ucar.edu/water_climate/impacts.html (Accessed on November 2, 2010) Safe water sources are essential for survival within a community. Manifestations of the projected water crisis include inadequate access to safe drinking water for about 884 million people as well as inadequate access to water for sanitation and water disposal for 2.5 billion people.Updated Numbers: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation Updated Report. 2008. http://www.unicef.org/media/media_44093.html , 25 As waters become warmer, hazardous algae and other bacteria growth increase, not only contaminating the water that we drink but also the seafood that we consume. With a population ranging between 198 and 210 million people in Nigeria, existing sanitation and water infrastructural facilities remain inadequate with 2.2 billion people lacking access to safe water and 4.2 billion lacking safe sanitations both in the rural and urban areas.
Rising sea levels and exposure to climate disasters Sea levels could rise rapidly with accelerated ice sheet disintegration. Global temperature increases of 3–4 degrees C could result in 330 million people being permanently or temporarily displaced through flooding Warming seas will also fuel more intense tropical storms. The destruction of coastal landscapes exacerbates the damage done by this increase in storms. Wetlands, forests, and mangroves have been removed for land development. These features usually slow runoff, storm surges, and prevent debris from being carried by flooding. Developing over these areas has increased the destructive power of floods and makes homeowners more susceptible to extreme weather events. Flooding causes the risk of submersion of lands in coastal areas in densely populated poverty areas, such as Alexandria and Port Said in Egypt, Lagos and Port Harcourt in Nigeria, and Cotonou in Benin. In some areas, such as coastal properties, real estate prices go up because of ocean access and housing scarcity, in part caused by homes being destroyed during storms. Wealthy homeowners have more resources to rebuild their homes and have better job security, which encourages them to stay in their communities following extreme weather events. Highly unstable areas, such as slopes and delta regions, are sold to lower-income families at a cheaper price point. After extreme weather events, Impoverished people have a difficult time finding or maintaining a job and rebuilding their homes. These challenges force many to relocate in search of job opportunities and housing.
Ecosystems and biodiversity