Climate change could result in 100 million poor

Using the new benchmark, the World Bank projects there will be 836 million people living in extreme poverty in 2015, down from 902 million in 2012.

– Food prices in Africa could rise by 12 per cent from the impact of climate change alone by 2030.

The poor have always been identified as the people who will bear the brunt of the worst effects of climate change, but the World Bank report paints a particularly stark picture of the threat.

“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.

“We are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty”, Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, said recently.

Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty differs from previous efforts by looking at the poverty impacts of climate change at the household level, rather than at the level of national economies.

The Hong Kong government has issued a report outlining ways to mitigate the effects of climate change in the city.

Poor families are more vulnerable to climate stresses than the rich because their main assets are often badly built homes and degrading land, and their losses are largely uninsured, the report said.

China Stringer Network/ReutersA boy, whose parents collect garbage for a living, plays on a makeshift swing at his dwelling, in Yuncheng, Shanxi province March 10, 2015.

“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”, it said. For instance, in Kenya, the Hunger Safety Net Program prevented a five percent increase in poverty among beneficiaries following the 2011 drought.

Without climate-informed development in East Asia and the Pacific, 13 million more people could fall into extreme poverty by 2030 as a result of climate change, with lower crop yields and higher food prices playing a major role.

Stephane Hallegatte, one of the authors, told The Associated Press that one of the unique features of the report was that instead of analyzing the macro-economic impact of climate change it was based in part on surveys of 1.4 million people in 92 countries. The approved projects include a scheme to improve the climate resilience of wetlands in Peru and a plan to roll out climate-proof infrastructure in Bangladesh.

Beyond 2030, the world’s ability to adapt to unabated climate change will be limited, warned the report, released ahead of a United Nations climate summit from November 30-Dec. 11 where a new deal to curb global warming is due to be agreed.

“For the short term, only adaptation can help”, said Hallegatte.

The report argues that in the poorest countries, domestic resources may be insufficient to put in place such measures, and global support will be essential. “Poor people spend a larger share of their budget on food than the rest of the population”, the report notes.

In the last decade, significant progress has been made to reduce global poverty.