By Megan Rowling
BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Without the
right policies to keep the poor safe from extreme weather and rising
seas, climate change could drive over 100 million more people into
poverty by 2030, the World Bank said on Sunday.
In a report, the bank said ending poverty - one of
17 new U.N. goals adopted in September - would be impossible if global
warming and its effects on the poor were not accounted for in
development efforts.
But more ambitious plans to reduce climate-changing
emissions - aimed at keeping global temperature rise within an
internationally agreed limit of 2 degrees Celsius - must also cushion
poor people from any negative repercussions, it added.
"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," World Bank Group
President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.
The bank's estimate of 100 million more poor by 2030
is on top of 900 million expected to be living in extreme poverty if
development progresses slowly. In 2015, the bank puts the number of poor
at 702 million people.
Climate change is already hurting them through
decreased crop yields, floods washing away assets and livelihoods, and a
bigger threat of diseases like malaria, said John Roome, World Bank
senior director for climate change.
He described ending poverty and tackling climate change as "the defining issues of our generation".
"The best way forward is to tackle poverty alleviation and climate change in an integrated strategy," he told reporters.
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.
Low-income households in sub-Saharan Africa and
South Asia are particularly at risk of having their hard-won gains wiped
out by climate-linked disasters, forcing them back into extreme
poverty, it added. [ID:nL8N131414]
The report warns that, between now and 2030, climate
policies can do little to alter the amount of global warming that will
happen, making it vital to invest in adaptation measures and broader
ways to make people more resilient.
When Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu this March, a
payout from a regional catastrophe risk scheme helped speed the
response. When drought in Ethiopia led to a hunger crisis in 2011, a
national programme providing food and cash in return for work on
community projects was quickly expanded.
Better social safety nets and health
coverage for all, together with targeted improvements such as flood
defences, early warning systems and hardier crops, could prevent or
offset most of the negative effects of climate change on poverty in the
next 15 years, the report said.
“We have a window of opportunity to achieve
our poverty objectives in the face of climate change, provided we make
wise policy choices now,” said Stephane Hallegatte, a senior World Bank
economist who led the team that prepared the report.
Roome highlighted the need to roll out good
policies faster, and ensure development projects consider climate
projections, so that new infrastructure is not damaged in the future.
ADAPTATION LIMITS
Beyond 2030, the world's ability to adapt to
unabated climate change will be limited, warned the report, released
ahead of a U.N. climate summit from Nov. 30-Dec. 11 where a new deal to
curb global warming is due to be agreed.
To rein in the longer-term impacts on
poverty, immediate policies are needed that bring emissions to zero by
the end of this century, the World Bank said.
Some of those will have benefits for the poor, such as cleaner air, more energy efficiency and better public transport.
Others could increase energy and food prices, which represent a large share of poor people's expenditures, the report noted.
But policy shifts need not threaten
short-term progress against poverty provided they are well-designed and
international support is made available, it added.
For example, savings from eliminating fossil
fuel subsidies could be reinvested in assistance schemes to help poor
families cope with higher fuel costs.
Or governments could introduce carbon or
energy taxes and recycle the revenues through a universal cash transfer
that would benefit the poor, the report said.
The international community can help by
providing financial and technological support for things like insurance
schemes, crop research, public transport and weather forecasting
systems, the report said.
(Reporting by Megan Rowling; editing by
Laurie Goering. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the
charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news,
women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit
www.trust.org)
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