09 October 2009

In 2007, the series of reports from the Nobel Peace Prize winning Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the impacts of climate change are already being felt and fall most heavily on those in some of the poorest countries. There are three main reasons for this:

1. Lack of assets. People living in poverty are vulnerable to climate change because they have few assets to help them avoid or recover from a shock event. It is very difficult for people to pursue alternative livelihoods if they have no capital to cover the costs and poor access to new knowledge or opportunities for learning new skills. Being marginalised, they are further hindered by a lack of influence over the institutions that controltheir access to resources. Whilst communities in these situations are exposed to sudden weather-related disaster events, when one happens, they are often unable to replace or repair damaged property, and subsequently less prepared and more vulnerable to future threats.

2. Relying on natural resources. People in rural communities generate most of their income from farming, fishing, or livestock rearing and rely on the natural resources available to them. Any changes in rainfall levels, soil fertility, temperature, plant coverage or water-levels can have devastating consequences for their livelihoods.

3. Vulnerable areas. Throughout the developed world it is usually the poorest that are forced to live in the most dangerous and marginalised areas. These are places where no one else will live because they are too risky. In Bangladesh, population size and competition for land push poor people into areas, such as the char lands, that are regularly flooded or receding through riverbank erosion.