Climate Change
The poorest countries in the world are hit first and worst by the impacts of climate change. While the richest countries in the world produce a disproportionate amount of the carbon emissions that cause global warming, poor countries are dealing with the droughts and floods that result. Climate change is now one of the biggest obstacles to ending poverty and one of the greatest sources of inequity among rich and poor nations.
Climate change is forcing the world to acknowledge that there are ecological limits to economic growth, production and consumption. Now is the time for action to reduce carbon emissions and to address the immediate impacts of global warming.
ActionAid is working around the world with poor and excluded communities, particularly in sub Saharan African and coastal region along the Indian and Pacific Ocean, to help them cope with the effects of a changing climate. At the same time, ActionAid is urging the US government to focus foreign assistance policy on the links between climate change, poverty, and agricultural development.
Climate change has already had disastrous effects on the world’s poorest communities. Extreme weather events, sea-level rise, drought, disruption of water and food supplies, and negative impacts on health threaten the effectiveness of all existing efforts to fight poverty.
ActionAid knows that not all poor people will be affected equally by climate change. Women, who make up 70 percent of the world’s poor, depend on the natural resources that are threatened by climate change much more than men. Poor women also lack access to, and control over, the technologies and credit they need to adapt to climate change. As a result, they are more vulnerable to seasonal and episodic weather and to natural disasters.
ActionAid’s decades of experience with farmers who depend on weather patterns and natural resources for their livelihood provide evidence that farmers are also disproportionately affected by climate change. Global warming presents one of the greatest threats to food security in the poorest regions of the world. Scientific studies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict that crop yields from rain-fed agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa could be reduced by as much as 50 percent by 2020.
Developed and developing countries need to chart new paths to development that are less dependent on carbon-producing fossil fuels, and that protect current generations and future generations. Rich countries, and elites in poorer countries, need to substantially reduce their consumption so that poor people can increase their share of the world’s assets and resources, especially those such as water that are affected by environmental changes.
ActionAid is working with partners around the world to help them cope with the effects of a changing climate.
- ActionAid is implementing sustainable agriculture programs to reduce vulnerability and increase the ability of poor farmers to adapt to changing weather patterns. Activities range from local water and soil conservation schemes to participatory breeding and dissemination of drought-resistant seeds and small-scale irrigation projects.
- ActionAid’s human security team carries out research and program interventions to enable poor and vulnerable communities to anticipate and adapt to the effects of climate change, which are increasingly “natural disasters” caused by climate change.
- ActionAid is working with our partners in the global South to gain testimonies of what poor communities are already doing to adapt to climate change and what support is still needed. These testimonies serve as the basis for much of our advocacy work in the global North.
Publications
Compensating for Climate Change: Principles and Lessons for Equitable Adaptation Funding
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Climate Change, Urban Flooding and the Rights of the Urban Poor in Africa: Key Findings from Six African Cities
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Climate Change and Smallholder Farmers in Malawi: Understanding Poor People’s Experiences in Climate Change Adaptation
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We Know What We Need! South Asian Women Speak Out about Climate Change
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Related Links
ActionAid is a member of the Up in Smoke Coalition, a coalition of organizations that makes the connection between climate change and global poverty. The Up in Smoke Coalition
Up in Smoke - Africa: The second report from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development:
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Up in Smoke? Latin America and the Caribbean
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