By Stephen Smith | Professor of Economics and International Affairs  at George Washington University

You may call it just a theory, but CLIMATE CHANGE is already having a very real effect on the world’s poor.

During a visit to Uganda earlier this year, a poor farmer told me with great concern about the late arrival of the rains the last couple of years. “The climate,” he said with puzzlement and worry, “seems to be changing.”

We cannot know if global warming caused a particular change in local seasonal rains. But this is the kind of problem predicted by global climate models to occur more frequently in coming decades. And the scientific evidence that climate change is already occurring is persuasive. Climate change is now one of the greatest long-term threats to our hopes of ending global poverty.

In April 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth assessment report. The panel was recently awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. The impact study shows how the developing world, especially the poorest countries, can expect major consequences from global warming in coming decades—many areas face the likelihood of more severe heat waves, tropical cyclones, floods from heavy rains, prolonged droughts, losses of valuable species, and crop and fishing losses. Successive IPCC reports have documented increasing certainty of the science, and stronger evidence that the future of climate change is already arriving.

Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world’s poorest regions, will be particularly hard-hit. The IPCC report concluded that by 2020 “agricultural production, including access to food, in many countries and regions in Africa is projected to be severely compromised by climate variability and change. The area suitable for agriculture, the length of growing seasons and yield potential, particularly along the margins of semi-arid and arid areas, are expected to decrease.” In some countries, the decrease in yield from rain-fed agriculture “could be as much as 50 percent by 2020.” Another major study, the “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change,” noted that in the tropics, “even small amounts of warming will lead to declines in yield.”

Water, both in excess and in shortage, will also become a greater issue. In Asia, millions of people live in low-lying areas in the path of typhoons of expected increasing frequency and intensity, and are at greater risk of ocean or river flooding. Glacier melting will also

People wanting to cross the overflowing Moroto river in northern Uganda wade through the water. In September, Ugandan authorities said that fresh rainfall was complicating efforts to deliver aid to areas devastated by massive fl oods. Some of the worst rainfall and fl oods in three decades have swept across Africa, affecting at least 1.5 million people in 18 different countries on the continent. Photo provided by Peter Busomoke/AFP/Getty Images

In Latin America, warming is expected to cause losses of Amazon forest and biodiversity by mid-century, with agriculture harmed in dryer climes.

Prolonged droughts and expanded desertification. Increased severity of storms, flooding and erosion. Longer, more severe heat waves, reduced summer river flow and water shortages. Loss of essential pollinators and soil organisms. Decreased grain yields. Deterioration of coastal fisheries, mangroves and coral reefs. One or more of these impacts is expected to affect most of the world’s
poorest countries during this century.

New Threats to the Global Poor

The very poor, who typically depend most on natural resources, bear the brunt of losses from climate change.

The World Health Organization estimates that 150,000 deaths each year are caused by global warming, largely due to diarrhea, malaria and malnutrition, and expects increased risks in poorer tropical regions. The housing of the poor is often located in the most environmentally stressed and risky areas. Houses constructed of mud, bamboo, straw and other inexpensive materials are vulnerable to the type of extreme weather events expected to occur with increased frequency and intensity. The poor cannot get insurance against the risks to which they are most vulnerable.

Climate change is likely to worsen hunger. Many undernourished people rely on subsistence farming for their diets; and the productivity of small, rain-fed farms in Africa is expected to decline due to droughts. Many poor countries already suffer from erosion and other stresses to farmland that is likely to interact with climate change. As agricultural productivity declines, the number of farm jobs and the wages they pay are likely to decline as well.

The poor already spend an inordinate amount of time securing and hauling water; and climate change threatens to reverse some encouraging improvements in safe water availability. Growing water stress poses new dangers to fragile areas. The crisis in Darfur is believed by analysts at the U.N. Environment Programme to have been triggered by environmental stress.

In future decades, rising altitudes at which malaria-carrying mosquitoes can thrive will newly threaten highlands in East Africa, and areas of southern Africa, such as Nairobi and Harare. The predicted drying in other areas such as the western Sahel may reduce malaria, but increase vulnerability to other diseases. Cholera and meningitis are among the diseases that have been linked to variations of climate.

One of the most discussed consequences of warming is the rise in ocean levels due to the natural expansion of warmer water and the melting of ice on land. Projections vary of the number of people living in areas likely to be submerged in the Indian Ocean and at greater ocean flooding vulnerability, but millions will have to migrate.

Floods are a natural phenomenon in Bangladesh, where about a third of cultivated land floods in a normal monsoon season. This predictable flooding can be managed reasonably well and even replenishes soil fertility. But extreme flooding from cyclones and swollen rivers drowns people along with their livestock, and are followed by dangerous water-borne illnesses, as witnessed this August. At the national level, floods can destroy infrastructure, setting back prospects for economic growth. Bangladesh, with its recent progress against poverty and efforts to build better flood protection, may be repeatedly tested as global warming
gathers pace.

Adapting for Survival

Just as climate change may worsen hunger and poverty, poverty compounds the difficulties of adapting to climate change. The global poor try to adapt to vulnerabilities by saving what they can, practicing informal local insurance, diversifying family livelihoods, and migrating out of distressed areas. But the poorer people are, the more difficult adaptation can be. Lacking adequate insurance, savings and credit, the rural poor may have to respond to emergencies by selling off assets such as animals that they worked so hard to acquire. This may provide them with immediate food and medical attention or building materials, but can reverse progress against poverty. If forced to flee to cities in search of work, the poor may lack the education and connections needed to be successful. Women especially may be constrained by cultural barriers and lack
of empowerment.

Policy changes can help make the poor more resilient to environmental stresses while providing other development benefits—implementing early warning systems to anticipate environmental emergencies and to prevent disasters; restoring and expanding natural ecosystem barriers such as mangroves; reforestation; establishing micro-insurance programs for farmers; constructing storm shelters, flood barriers, and protected roads and bridges; and empowering the poor and their organizations. In many countries more government transparency and accountability are needed.

Environmental problems tend to be mutually reinforcing, so we should not treat impacts of global warming as an isolated category. Successful programs often benefit from a combination of scientific environmental management and traditional knowledge. Many outstanding examples, such as the Suledo Forest Community and the HASHI project in Tanzania, are found among winners and runners-up of the United Nations Equator Prize, which recognizes “local efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity” (see http://www.undp.org/equatorinitiative/).

Many people in developing countries are taking part in restoration efforts. The U.N. Development Programme has chronicled the efforts by coastal farmers in Vietnam to plan and replant mangroves to reduce storm damage. In Africa, the tree planting by the Greenbelt Movement, for which Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, has resulted in better soil management and a decrease in erosion.

There are many win-win solutions. Measures in developing countries that can cost-effectively support development—such as energy conservation, shift to tropical biofuels using crops grown by small farmers, rural electrification with renewables, and improvements in urban transportation—also help reduce greenhouse gases.

Preventing forest loss, and reforestation, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and restore traditional income sources for the poor. To help protect forest cover many experts believe it may be most effective to employ the poor as guardians of these resources. Living on site, they are more likely than absentee owners to pay attention to poaching and illegal logging. Not only can rich countries afford such strategies, it is in their interests. The world’s richer nations must do more to help.

The International Response

Lake Chad sits at the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger. Once one of the world’s largest lakes, it has shrunk by 94 percent in the past 50 years due in part to increased agricultural irrigation but also a significant decrease in rainfall. Photo provided by Jacques Descloritres, Modis Land Rapid Response Team, NAASA/GSFC

 “The poorest developing countries will be hit earliest and hardest by climate change,” concluded the “Stern Review,” “even though they have contributed little to causing the problem. Their low incomes make it difficult to finance adaptation.” Even as we fund adaptation, we must recognize that adaptation alone will not succeed. We also need to take the lead on mitigation.

This December, representatives from over 180 nations will debate action on climate change in Bali, Indonesia. The hope is to reach agreement on the process of achieving a new international treaty on global warming. It has become clear that action is needed to save the environment and end poverty and hunger—these imperatives have become interwoven as never before. But whether new agreements will go far enough—and the role America will play—remains very much in doubt.

The rich world must make far more strenuous efforts than have been made to date—both in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and assisting the poor who will suffer the worst consequences. Acting now on climate change is not only a matter of avoiding environmental and economic losses; it is a moral and humanitarian concern.

Humanitarian organizations such as Red Cross/Red Crescent and Care International have been ramping up their focus on climate change, because of the larger disasters it is likely to cause (such as floods) as well as its disproportionate impact on the poor.

That there remains uncertainty about the magnitude and type of some of the impacts (flooding or droughts, or both at different times) makes this a more urgent call to action.

Impacts might turn out better than the average forecast. But as has received growing attention, they could possibly turn out to be much worse. It makes sense to take out insurance against this calamity by taking stronger action now. In so doing we protect not only ourselves, but also the poor, who caused very little of the problem.

Based on damage done and ability to pay, Oxfam has created an “Adaptation Financing Index,” which places the U.S. responsible for over 40 percent of the costs of adapting to climate change, with Europe responsible for more than 30 percent and Japan over 10 percent. Oxfam estimates that less than one half of one percent of the needed funds has been committed.

The bottom line is, when we contain global warming, we reduce current and future poverty. By reducing greenhouse gases, we protect the livelihoods of some of the world’s poorest people. By making protection of forests profitable, we can help preserve the global environment.

Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions is an important addition to our portfolio of strategies for ending hunger and poverty, but it is not a substitute for supporting other vital work. We must keep our commitments to expand much-needed assistance for the poor in health, nutrition, education, livelihoods and empowerment

Because availability of future means and assistance for adaptation many years from now is also far from clear, we act also for improved welfare of those who may still remain poor and hungry in the future. The good news, according the Stern Review and other studies, is that it is neither too late, nor is it overly expensive if we act soon.

We Can All Help

So what can citizens do to help? Knowledge is powerful. The first step is to learn more. Major recent reports, such as the five listed in the accompanying sidebar, shed light on different aspects of these problems. Sometimes these reports may raise as many questions as they answer. But by being aware of the current knowledge, you will be in the best position to help.

Second, share what you have learned about the effects of climate change on the poor with others. Let local, state and national politicians know you care about global as well as national costs of climate change. Demand more decisive action here at home and in

Pastoralist children beg for water in Dambas, Kenya. Thousands of people face starvation due to deepening drought in northern Kenya. The government is distributing food rations to communities in the worst-affected areas and is appealing to the international community for urgent aid to save the lives of an estimated 2.5 million people. Northeastern Kenya could take 15 years to recover from the effects of the drought, aid agencies in the area warn. Many people fear they will soon begin to start dying like their animals. Photo provided by Chris Jackson/Getty Images

You can take steps to reduce your impact on global warming. We must do what we can to reduce greenhouse gases—as individuals, businesses and active citizens influencing local and national policy. Groups such as Conservation International provide valuable tips for individuals to reduce their impact; you can learn more at their website: http://conservation.org.

You can also put your time and talents to work. We can have a big impact through the nongovernmental sector. Learn about the best work on the dimensions of the problem that speak to you most. Get directly involved as a serious donor as well as an active volunteer. And continue to support effective strategies for fighting poverty and hunger directly. Environmental work complements poverty work, but it is not a substitute.

The time is now. The connection between the goals of ending hunger and saving the environment has never been clearer. For the environment, for the quality of our own lives, and for the security and progress of the poor, we must take action.

Further reading on poverty and climate change

Stephen C. Smith is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University and author of Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works; co-author with Michael Todaro of Economic Development, 9th Ed.; and co-editor with Jennifer Brinkerhoff and Hildy Teegen of NGOs and the Millennium Development Goals: Citizen Action to Reduce Poverty.