The UN’s heavily-hyped Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were approved by more than 160 world leaders at a summit meeting in September, are an integral part of the world body’s post-2015 development agenda, including the eradication of hunger and poverty by 2030.

But that ambitious goal, warns the UN’s sister institution, the World Bank, can be thwarted by the devastating impact of climate change on the world’s poorest people.

In a new study released Monday, the World Bank says climate change is already preventing people from escaping poverty.

“And without rapid, inclusive and climate-smart development, together with emissions-reductions efforts that protect the poor, there could be more than 100 million additional people in poverty by 2030.”

The report, released ahead of the international climate conference in Paris November 30-December 11, finds that poor people are already at high risk from climate-related shocks, including crop failures from reduced rainfall, spikes in food prices after extreme weather events, and increased incidence of diseases after heat waves and floods.

Titled ‘Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty’, the study says such shocks could wipe out hard-won gains, leading to irreversible losses and, driving people back into poverty, particularly in Africa and South Asia.

According to the report, 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.

In the 52 countries where data was available, 85 per cent of the population live in countries where poor people are more exposed to drought than the average.

Poor people are also more exposed to higher temperatures and live in countries where food production is expected to decrease because of climate change, the report notes.

“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,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.

“Climate change hits the poorest the hardest, and our challenge now is to protect tens of millions of people from falling into extreme poverty because of a changing climate,” he added.

Asked for a response, Harjeet Singh, Climate Policy Manager at ActionAid, told IPS the World Bank’s analysis of poor people’s vulnerability to climate impacts is not new, but it rightly highlights that poverty cannot be addressed without tackling climate change.

He said poor people and poor countries are most vulnerable to climate change as they have limited assets, skills and knowledge to overcome the effects.

“However, the World Bank is coming late to the game with its talk of improving social protection to fight the effects of climate change”, Singh said.

In reality, he pointed out, the World Bank has had a long and dubious record of forcing developing countries to reduce their public expenditure to provide basic services, and protecting socially and economically weaker populations.

“It will need to address this before it can reliably practise what the report preaches,” he declared.

Louise Whiting, senior policy analyst, water security and climate change at the UK-based WaterAid, told IPS the world’s poorest are most at risk from climate change and are receiving the least amount of climate-change financing to help them adapt to climate-related weather shocks including flood, drought and heat waves.

“Our research tells us that in Bangladesh alone, an estimated 38 million lives are at risk between now and 2050 because of climate-change related disasters,” she pointed out.

“The climate path we are on now means an end to development – an end to all progress on extreme poverty.”

She said for families living in extreme poverty, with fragile access to safe water, good sanitation and hygiene, these lengthening dry seasons and intensifying monsoons wipe out years of work and further entrench the cycle of poverty.

“Safeguarding basic services including clean water, sanitation and hygiene helps communities recover faster and become more resilient to climactic extremes.”

Whiting said national governments in developing countries need more support in designing and implementing projects to help eradicate poverty while building communities’ resilience to climate change, as well as financing.

Leaders at this month’s crucial talks in Paris must not forget the world’s poorest, and include a strong focus on helping them to adapt to this challenging new reality, she added.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Zambian farmer Neva Hamalengo (right) knows what it means to lose crops to the ravages of weather and have no insurance coverage. Credit: Friday Phiri/IPS

By Friday Phiri
MOYO, Pemba District, Zambia, Jul 6 2015 (IPS)

In the advent of unpredictable weather, smallholder rain-dependent agriculture is increasingly becoming a risky business and the situation could worsen if, as seems likely, the world experiences levels of global warming that could lead to an increase in droughts, floods and diseases, both in frequency and intensity.

Neva Hamalengo, a 40-year-old farmer from Moyo in Pemba district, Southern Zambia, knows what it means to lose everything in a blink of an eye – not only did a storm wipe out an entire hectare of market-ready tomatoes worth about 15,000 kwacha (2,000 dollars), but he also suffered maize crop failure due to a month-long drought.

“I expect very poor yields this season,” he told IPS. “We suffered crop damage through a storm and when crops needed the rains to recover, we had a severe drought.”

To make matters worse, his smallholder business had no insurance cover and, admitting that he “knew nothing about insurance,” Hamalengo said that would love to see insurance education incorporated into agricultural extension services.“When small-scale farmers are financially literate, they are able to guide fellow farmers to uptake a particular financial product such as insurance or credit … and avoid making poor decisions” – Allan Mulando, WFP Zambia

Hamalengo’s situation represents the predicament faced by most smallholder farmers – who are generally excluded from financial services – and confirms arguments by some experts that the risk of running an uninsured business is far greater if climate is involved.

While financial inclusion is considered a key enabler for reducing poverty, the statistics in Zambia are far from encouraging. According to a 2009 FinScope survey, 63 percent of the Zambian adult population (6.4 million people) is excluded from formal financial services. Slightly over half of the adult population is engaged in farming.

Putting these statistics into context, the “unbanked” majority are poor people, with many of them smallholder farmers. Now, in an attempt to help them become more resilient to climate variability and shocks, the World Food Programme (WFP) has launched the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, aimed at tackling risk in a holistic manner.

The initiative is “an integrated approach to managing risk, focusing on index‐based agricultural insurance (risk transfer), improved natural resource management (disaster risk reduction), credit (prudent risk taking), savings (risk reserves) and productive safety nets,” Allan Mulando, WFP Zambia’s Head of Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping Unit (VAM), told IPS.

The initiative is based on a strategic global partnership between WFP and Oxfam America which, Mulando said, is aimed at “improving the capacity of food-insecure households to manage the risks of severe weather shocks.”

Working with partners such as the national Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU), government ministries, the Meteorological Department, national insurance companies, as well as credit and savings institutions, the project strives to integrate activities with already running government programmes on resilience, such as the Conservation Agriculture Scaling Up (CASU), programme.

CASU, which is being run by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and with financial support from the European Union (EU), aims to contribute to reduced hunger, and improved food security, nutrition and income, while promoting the sustainable use of natural resources.

“R4’s overall objective is to create an environment for private sector participation through market development to ensure sustainability … through insurance cover, credit provision, asset creation programmes and safety nets, as well as household saving … all of which have been identified as alternative ways of reducing vulnerability,” explained Mulando.

Stressing the importance of the project, Southern Province Principal Agriculture Officer Paul Nyambe told IPS that “the Ministry [of Agriculture and Livestock] has been encouraging climate-resilient technologies under CASU and crop diversification amid climate-induced hazards, of which financial inclusion is a key ingredient.”

Meanwhile, for the Ministry of Lands, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, such initiatives are always welcome because they fall within the government’s major objective of building the capacity of local communities to adapt to climate change.

“Stakeholders with initiatives that help people to adapt are welcome,” Richard Lungu, Chief Environment Management Officer at the ministry, said. “Right now, government is in the process of mobilising resources to support communities affected by a severe drought which led to crop failure.”

According to Lungu, who is Zambia’s focal point for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , “climate change is now a cross-cutting developmental issue especially for Zambia whose economy is natural resource dependent”, with over 80 percent of the population dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Whereas climate shocks can trap farmers in poverty, the risk of shocks also limits their willingness to invest in measures that might increase their productivity and improve their economic situation – and this is where financial education becomes critical.

“Taking into consideration that agricultural weather-based index insurance is relatively new among our small farmers, there is a need for strong financial education,” Mulando told IPS. “When small-scale farmers are financially literate, they are able to guide fellow farmers to uptake a particular financial product such as insurance or credit … and avoid making poor decisions.”

Financial expert George Siameja agreed but noted that the problem lies at two levels – lack of financial education and an inhibiting credit finance environment.

“However, financial literacy should be the starting point because banks consider it too risky to lend money to individuals with inadequate financial capacity,” Siameja told IPS. “While farming is a function of climate, financial education is key.”

Sussane Giese, a German development and change consultant, also pointed to the so-called “dependency syndrome” which inhibits farmers from being more active. “In my interactions with some field officers,” she said, “there is something called dependency syndrome affecting farmers where they see themselves as beneficiaries and not individuals running agriculture as an enterprise.”

Meanwhile, one farmer who is singing the praises of financial literacy is 34-year-old Rodney Mudenda of Nabuzoka village in Pemba district, who has seen a dramatic change of fortunes.

“Since I was trained in financial management last year, I have changed my approach to farming. I am ready to take calculated risks like I did this season to reduce on maize and plant more sunflowers, a drought-tolerant crop. And the gamble has paid off. I expect to earn 12,000 kwacha (1,500 dollars) from an investment of 5,000 kwacha (650 dollars)”, Mudenda told IPS.

Edited by Phil Harris

Doctors could prevent a crisis if they know ahead of time that the health of their patients will be affected by a change in the weather. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Jun 3 2013 (IPS)

A biometeorological forecast model developed in Cuba to sound the alert on weather conditions that exacerbate chronic diseases like asthma, hypertension and vascular disorders could also help predict the impacts of climate change on health.

Studies have found that significant changes in air oxygen density are related to an increase in visits to health centres by people with chronic ailments.

This service, available on the Internet, began to be used in the Provincial Centre for Hygiene and Epidemiology of the Health Directorate of the central province of Villa Clara.

Luis Lecha, a researcher at the provincial Centre for Environmental Studies and Services, explains in this interview with IPS that the project to study the effects that weather could have on people’s health got under way in the 1990s.

Q: What does this forecast model, which makes it possible to set up an early warning system in the area of health, consist of?

A: The study was carried out in the period 1991-1995 in 17 hospitals, where for five years information was compiled on a daily basis about patient visits to the doctor for different ailments.

The data was compared with weather reports to study the relation between the climate and the increase in disease occurrence.

Atmospheric oxygen density turned out to be the indicator…that best reflects the influence of weather on the daily occurrence of the illnesses studied.

So the PronBiomet biometeorology model consists of a set of physical-mathematical algorithms programmed to run in computers and calculate ahead of time the day-to-day variations of air oxygen content in broad geographical regions.

Q: The changes in the air oxygen content beyond a certain threshold activate the human body’s response mechanisms and affect its health. Why does this occur?

A: We are all exposed to the actions of external factors, including environmental and meteorological ones.

Our capacity for adaptation, for self-regulation through homeostasis, enables us to adapt, to assimilate that change. As long as the organism can deal with the intensity and duration of the impact of that external factor, your state of health remains stable.

But if for some reason the intensity or duration of the impact exceeds the individual’s capacity for adaptation, the person can suffer from anything from a simple headache or sneeze to the worst consequences, like a heart attack, stroke, or even sudden death.

Q: What illnesses does this warning system cover?

A: So far the effects of weather have been studied for certain chronic diseases like bronchial asthma, hypertension, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, headaches and some kinds of acute respiratory infections.

Q: How effective have the forecasts proven to be?

A: Effectiveness was calculated using the data from health visits between 2007 and 2011 to the health services in the Playa municipality of Havana and in the Sagua la Grande municipality in Villa Clara.

Asthma is the illness that shows the clearest results, with 94 percent accuracy in the forecasts of the increase in the number of people seeking assistance on days with tropical weather effects, followed by hypertension, with 87 percent effectiveness.

Effectiveness in the case of cerebrovascular accidents and headaches reached 83 and 81 percent, respectively, while the forecasts were 75 percent correct in the case of heart disease – in other words, three out of four days.

Q: Is the system functioning in any health clinics?

A: In February 2012 the service began to be offered in the Provincial Centre for Hygiene and Epidemiology of the Health Directorate of the province of Villa Clara.

To introduce the system in practice, the authorities selected reference centres in Sagua la Grande, Santa Clara and Ranchuelo, where health institutions are applying new procedures to make the most of these forecasts and mitigate the consequences of tropical weather variations for the local population.

Q: What advantages or impacts have been achieved with this service?

A: If doctors know ahead of time that weather conditions could occur which could affect the health of some of their patients, preventive measures could be taken. These include the optimisation of the use and distribution of necessary medication and other scarce materials.

In addition, we know that more than 10 percent of the Cuban population is asthmatic and that mortality associated with acute crises of bronchial asthma is on the rise.

So, if thanks to the biometeorological forecast service just 20 percent of the asthma crises that could occur because of significant tropical weather effects were avoided or minimised, it would contribute to improving the health of more than 200,000 people.

Similar reasoning can be made for other diseases, which means the greatest impact of this service lies in its capacity to effectively and relatively rapidly contribute to reducing morbidity and mortality associated with some diseases that are frequent in the country, whose occurrence is closely linked to weather variability.

Q: What is needed for the system to be applied in the health system nationwide?

A: At this time we are in the process of extending the service to all of the municipalities of Villa Clara. But each illness entails a specific procedure.

This is a very broad, interdisciplinary field that we are starting to get involved in together with health professionals.

Q: What new scientific challenges are opening up now?

A: We now know the model works, that it is effective. Overall, we have achieved 85 percent effectiveness, and apart from applying these results in Cuba, today we are following this for the sake of the entire world.

The latest studies on climate tendencies in Cuba indicate that the average air temperature is on the rise.

So although the population is well-adapted to heat, we don’t know if we can also adapt to the rise in the conditions of stress that lie ahead of us in the future due to the variability not of weather but of the climate, especially because of the visible effects of climate change.

Perhaps for the most vulnerable or most weather-sensitive population to be able to withstand the hotter and more tropical summers of the future, strategic actions will have to begin to be adopted now.

We want to develop early warning systems to evaluate how heat waves will behave in the tropical context, thus contributing to prepare adaptation strategies to confront climate change in our Caribbean regional setting.

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