Poverty Reduction and Climate Change

Climate change impedes the fight against global poverty because poor people tend to live in the most vulnerable locations. For example, the river deltas of Bangladesh and Burma are densely populated by poor households exposed to risks of storm and tidal surges.

In sub-Saharan Africa, populations are predominantly rural, dependent on rain-fed agriculture for subsistence and livelihoods. Poor families are ill-equipped to respond to changing rainfall patterns and the shorter growing season caused by warmer days and nights.

Rice crops near Makeni, Sierra Leone © David Hecht / IRIN News

Strategies to achieve the UN’s targets for global poverty reduction, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), are being stabbed in the back by climate change. The World Bank estimates that up to 40% of aid projects could fail through unanticipated climate risk. An Oxfam briefing states that “hundreds of millions of people are already suffering damage from a rapidly changing climate, which is frustrating their efforts to escape poverty.”

Nonetheless, global warming is rarely the sole cause of climate-related humanitarian distress. Mismanagement of local resources is invariably a factor; for example, overgrazing contributes to desertification and deforestation exacerbates flooding. Climate change ratchets up the pressure on sensitive ecosystems, pushing them towards tipping points of floods and drought.

This human component is invariably a function of poverty which squeezes out the room for manoeuvre necessary for optimum soil and water management. Poor households are not in a position to join the fight against global warming. Climate change campaigners and international development agencies have been slow to grasp this interdependence of their interests.


Angelique Orr, Oxfam's Climate Change Campaign Manager, looks at the links between poverty and climate change.
Climate Justice

In the period 1900-2004, the whole of Africa was responsible for 2.5% of cumulative carbon dioxide emissions whilst the US accounted for 29.5%. India's current per capita carbon dioxide emissions are 1.5 tonnes per annum against 20 tonnes in the US.

House buried by sand in Mauritania © Phuong Tran / IRIN News

These statistics, combined with our knowledge that carbon dioxide absorbed by the atmosphere remains to exert a greenhouse effect for many decades, illustrate how the countries most seriously affected by climate change are those which carry the least responsibility.

The concept of climate justice seeks to restore equity in two ways. Firstly, that richer countries should repay their climate debt by undertaking severe cuts in emissions, reserving “atmospheric space” for the growing emissions of poorer countries. Secondly, that financial compensation should assist with the costs of low carbon transition and of adaptation to the damaging effects of climate change.

The thrust of international negotiations implies acceptance of the principle of climate justice, at least in its very broadest sense. Unfortunately, this progress may be undermined by the adoption of a tolerance threshold for global warming of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The 2007 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows how the richer countries in temperarate zones will benefit from higher crop yields within this temperature rise. By contrast, crops in tropical regions are already at their limit of temperature sensitivity. Many small island states are unlikely to survive warming on this scale due to salinisation of water supplies and ultimate inundation by rising tides.

Glacial lake outburst site, Bhutan © Piet van der Poel

Furthermore, the two degree figure is a global average; on the Tibetan plateau temperatures have been rising at double the global average over the last three decades. 500 million people from largely poor households live in the Ganges river basin, just one of the regions threatened by water shortages and food insecurity as 90% of the Himalayan glaciers retreat.

The logical endgame for climate justice campaigners is to demand that climate change should be addressed in human rights terms. The impact on essential food and water supplies, increasingly attributed to global warming, represents an infringement of social and economic rights. In January 2009 the UN Human Rights Council commissioned a report which concluded that “addressing that harm (of global warming) remains a critical human rights concern and obligation under international law.”
Kyoto Protocol

Kroo Bay slums, Freetown © Nicholas Reader / IRIN News

International laws seeking to stabilise global warming are grounded in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty agreed at the Rio de Janeiro "Earth Summit" in 1992. It seeks climate justice by establishing the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” in which richer countries “should take the lead in combating climate change and....in meeting costs of adaptation to (its) adverse effects.”

These richer countries are known as “Annex 1 countries” and it is they who are subject to legally binding targets under The Kyoto Protocol. This was negotiated in 1997 as a supplement to the UNFCCC and eventually ratified in February 2005.

In aggregate these targets seek a 5% reduction in the 1990 level of greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. However, the calculation excludes emissions from aviation and shipping and there has been no contribution from the US which refused to ratify the Protocol. Furthermore, several countries, including Canada, Australia and Japan, have blatantly disregarded their Kyoto commitments.

These shortcomings, together with rapidly expanding emissions from non-Annex 1 countries such as China and India, have ensured the failure of the Kyoto Protocol’s objectives. Global fossil fuel emissions in 2008 were 41% above the 1990 baseline, defying the scientists who plead that the level must peak by 2020 for a 2.0 degree temperature target or 2015 for 1.5 degrees.

The economic recession of 2008/09 has slowed this trend but the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now at its highest for at least 800,000 years.
Copenhagen Accord

The expiry of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period in 2012 compels the UN to intensify efforts to forge agreement for its renewal or replacement. Prospects that this might be achieved at the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009 were promising.

The new Obama administration honoured its promises of US participation. China and India announced targets to reduce the growth trajectory of their emissions and the G8 group of richest countries agreed to reduce emissions “in aggregate by 80% or more by 2050.”

In the event, the negotiations came close to shambolic collapse, rescued at the last minute by the Copenhagen Accord. Although the text endorses UNFCCC obligations of common but differentiated responsibilities, together with financing of adaptation costs for the most vulnerable countries, the Accord has been widely condemned as a toothless failure of global leadership.

Drafted by China, India, Brazil, South Africa and US, countries strongly opposed to legally binding commitments, the text rejects continuity of the Kyoto Protocol. It makes no reference to quantified emissions targets, either in global aggregate or at national level. Aviation and shipping emissions continue to escape attention.


Reaction in the immediate aftermath of Copenhagen talks by Barry Coates, Executive Director of Oxfam, New Zealand

In place of global targets, the Annex 1 countries were asked to submit their independent intentions for “mitigation actions.” The inevitable outcome is that these commitments in aggregate fall far short of the reductions necessary to limit temperature rise to 2.0 degrees, let alone 1.5 degrees.

The poorest countries now find themselves in an impossible position. If they agree to an approach based on the Accord, their poverty reduction programmes will be exposed to unacceptable temperature risks. It they insist on the tighter Kyoto approach, they may be accused of collapsing the UN process, prompting a group of richer countries such as the G20 to initiate separate climate change agreements in which poor countries would have no voice.

In Copenhagen, a small group of countries led by Bolivia voted against the Accord, thereby denying the document legal status - which depends on universal endorsement under UN rules. The UN Secretary-General has declared his intention to pursue a compromise text to unite the “Kyoto track” with the Accord - which could then become legally binding at the next major UNFCCC conference in Mexico in November 2010.

Prospects of success are very poor, not least because the US Senate appears unwilling to countenance any legislation curbing emissions. Global politicians have also taken advantage of an apparent lull in public demand for action.

This stems partly from the pressures of economic recession and partly from adverse publicity relating to the scientific basis for climate change. A UN investigation into shortcomings in the IPCC process of peer review will be concluded before the Mexico conference.
Adaptation

Practical measures which reduce vulnerability to the impact of climate change are described as "adaptation”, a concept which betrays our failure to prevent global warming and that its consequences are unavoidable and imminent. Scope is limited by local adaptive capacity, a measure which exposes global inequality at its most extreme.

water intensive cotton in Mali © Oxfam Great Britain

Armed with their highly educated, healthy and skilled workforces, industrialised countries are already committing to defensive projects in anticipation of floods, coastal erosion and new patterns of agriculture. Price tags of hundreds of millions of dollars are no disincentive. By contrast, adopting drought-resistant crop varieties, or improving soil, forest and water conservation, are formidable tasks for families absorbed in a daily scramble for household essentials.

The answer is to approach adaptation and development as two sides of the same coin. Successful poverty reduction programmes will reduce vulnerability to change. Commitment to adaptation can ensure that climate change issues are absorbed into local development plans, building on existing community experience of coping with a variable climate.

This common sense approach is reflected in the UN-funded National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) which have been prepared by most countries within the Least Developed Country (LDC) classification. They largely focus on small-scale projects relevant to social development but judged to be at risk from global warming.

The NAPA reports illustrate the considerable difficulty in separating out the costs of adaptation from the costs of existing development goals. The UN Human Development Report for 2007 priced adaptation in developing countries at $86 billion pa, almost as much as the entire current global aid budget. The more recent World Development Report 2010 acknowledges the difficulty in the calculations but reaches a similar conclusion.


Heather McGray, Senior Associate at the World Resources Institute, explains how to enable the rural poor to adapt to a changing climate.
Disaster Risk and Migration

Disaster risk management is a component of adaptation, especially in the context of extreme weather events. For example, the shelters and early warning systems constructed in the deltas of Bangladesh have already proved their worth in saving lives.

Tornado forming over Irrawaddy Delta © Julien Cadu / IRIN News

Research prepared for the Copenhagen climate conference showed that the frequency of weather-related disasters has been increasing and that almost all impact on poor countries. The economic costs are immense - $15 billion during 2009. Although these events can only partly be attributed to climate change, the UNFCCC process is investigating the potential of global insurance cover, perhaps funded by the major emitting countries.

The most extreme form of climate disaster renders land permanently unfit for human habitation, forcing people to migrate rather than adapt. This can occur for example through desertification or salinisation of soil and water resources. It has often been suggested that the violence in Darfur is the world’s first land rights conflict caused in part by climate change.

Predictions of cross-border climate-induced migration are speculative but suggest a total of 200-250 million by 2050. The UN Refugee Agency acknowledges that some degree of new international protection should be provided, but is uncomfortable with the terminology of “climate refugees” out of concern for destabilising the long-established rights of political refugees.
Deforestation and Climate Change

Primary forest, Brazil, CFU000553 © Roberto Faidutti / FAO

The IPCC 2007 Assessment estimated that deforestation contributes 17.4% of all greenhouse gas emissions, a higher figure than expected. The Bali climate change conference of 2007 therefore encouraged research on how developing countries might be compensated financially for protecting their forests through a scheme now known as “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation” (REDD).

It is broadly accepted that REDD could be one of the most efficient and cost effective ways of tackling climate change, whilst simultaneously delivering the many other valuable benefits of protecting forests. The inclusion of “degradation” recognises the extent of clearance of forest peripheries for wood fuel, charcoal production and “slash and burn” agriculture. REDD must find ways of replacing the value of these activities to poor rural communities, especially in Africa.

International agreement on REDD is believed to be further advanced than other components of the UNFCCC negotiations. Pilot projects are under way in key forest countries in anticipation of an initial implementation period from 2013 to 2020. Targets are unclear but there has been mention of a complete end to deforestation by 2030 with costs rising to $20 billion per annum.

However, logistical difficulties should not be underestimated. There are concerns over the scope of the programme, the risk that protection of one region will condemn the neighbouring forest to the loggers, that weak institutional capacity cannot deliver measurement and verification requirements or protect the rights of indigenous groups whose livelihoods depend on the forest.


Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries from TVE Inspiring Change
Technology Transfer

Solar lantern © Practical Action

A fundamental dilemma is how to stabilise global greenhouse gas emissions without denying the right of developing countries to industrialise their economies and provide electricity to 1.5 billion people currently without access. The transfer of energy efficient technologies from rich to poor countries has an important role to play.

Assessing and implementing the technology needs of poor countries is far from straightforward. Remote rural areas may be better served in the short term by efficient cooking stoves and small-scale renewable resources than gas-fired power stations.

The Kyoto Protocol addressed technology transfer through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which encourages Annex 1 countries to install modern climate-friendly technology in developing countries. The CDM has so far failed in its objectives. Most projects have been awarded to China; by June 2010, Africa had qualified for only 45 out of 2250 approved projects.

The Copenhagen Accord declares the intention to establish a new Technology Mechanism “to accelerate technology development and transfer.” This may involve a new technology fund distributing investments according to strategic priorities. There is no agreement yet in response to the pleas of developing countries for relaxation of intellectual property rights associated with low carbon technologies.
Climate Finance

To the extent that advocates of the principle of climate justice measure success by the scale of financial transfers from rich to poor countries, results to date must be regarded as extremely disappointing.

Solar power in Morocco © Greenpeace International

Taking adaptation as an illustration – an evaluation of the UNFCCC Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) projected that, by the end of 2009, just 22 out of 426 projects identified in NAPA reports would have been funded. Established in 2001 to support the NAPA initiative, the LDCF is just one part of the shambolic financial architecture embracing over twenty multilateral and bilateral climate funding initiatives.

The text of the 2009 Accord promises rationalisation of climate finance through the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund which will combine support for mitigation, adaptation, REDD and technology transfer. Annex 1 countries will provide “approaching $30 billion” for the period 2010-2012, rising to $100 billion per annum by 2020.

Beyond these basic statements there remain vast differences to be resolved before a long term agreement can be reached.

Firstly, this scale of funding falls well short of demands by the poorest countries and international NGOs. They envisage climate finance in the range of 0.5%-1% of GDP, equating to $200-$400 billion per annum and commencing long before 2020. Secondly, they are concerned about references in the Copenhagen Accord to “alternative sources of finance”, to be researched by a High Level Panel.

Doubtless the Panel will address continuing arguments over the relative merits of “cap and trade” schemes, carbon taxes, and the role of carbon “offsets”. These reward providers of climate finance with carbon permits which can be offset against national emissions reductions targets or “cap and trade” requirements for corporations. It is likely that the introduction of REDD will add to the supply of UN-certified credits currently flowing from the CDM and traded as international commodities.

Flooding near Monrovia © Marcus Wleh / IRIN News

Many poor countries are uneasy about offsets and carbon trading. They question whether delivery of these “permits to pollute” defeats the object of the original climate-friendly investment. They are suspicious of becoming pawns in the discredited world of complex financial trading.

The alternative pragmatic view considers that recent years of economic crisis have put the price of climate justice beyond the treasuries of the Annex 1 countries. There is no option but to engage with private sector sources of climate finance.

Recipient countries are therefore frustrated by the lack of detail in the Accord text. They seek reassurance that climate funds will be additional to existing development aid and that payments will be provided as grants rather than loans. They are concerned that the World Bank has been positioning itself for governance of the Green Climate Fund, preferring a UNFCCC structure which would enable all countries to share in the decision-making process.

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