Climate change will throw more people into poverty

On November 08, 2015 the World Bank said that climate change could drive over 100 million people more into poverty by 2030 in absence of right policies to keep the poor safe from extreme weather and rising sea level. In a report the bank said, if global warming and its effects on the poor were not accounted for in development efforts to end poverty - one of 17 new UN goals adopted in September 2015 - would be impossible to achieve. It added that the aim of keeping the rise of global temperature within an internationally agreed limit of 2 degrees Celsius is not an ambitious plan. To reduce the effects of climate change, efforts must also cushion poor people from any negative repercussions.   
The World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement that "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". If development progresses slowly the bank's estimated victim of another 100 million poor by 2030 is on top of 900 million expected to be living in extreme poverty. The World Bank senior director for climate change John Roome said that 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. He described ending poverty and tackling climate change as "the defining issues of our generation". He told, "The best way forward is to tackle poverty alleviation and climate change in an integrated strategy".
Since the main assets of the poor people are often their makeshift homes and degrading land, and their losses are largely uninsured, the poor families are more vulnerable to climate stresses than the rich. Low-income households in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are particularly at serious risk of having their hard-won gains wiped out by climate-linked disasters, forcing them back into extreme poverty. The report warns that, climate policies can do little to alter the amount of global warming that will happen, between now and 2030, making it vital to invest more in adaptation measures and broader ways to make people more resilient. A payout from a regional catastrophe risk scheme helped speed the response when Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu this March 2015. A national programme providing cash and food in return for work on community projects was quickly expanded when drought in Ethiopia led to a hunger crisis in 2011.
In the next 15 years, the report said that better health coverage and social safety nets for all, together with targeted improvements such as early warning systems and hardier crops, flood defences could prevent or offset most of the negative effects of climate change on poverty. Stephane Hallegatte, a senior World Bank economist who led the team that prepared the report said that "We have a window of opportunity to achieve our poverty objectives in the face of climate change, provided we make wise policy choices now". 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. The report, released ahead of a UN climate summit from November 30, 2015 to December 11, 2015 where a new deal to curb global warming is due to be agreed, warned that adaptation limits beyond 2030, the world's ability to adapt to unabated climate change will be limited,
The World Bank said that immediate policies are needed that will bring emissions to zero by the end of this twenty-first century to rein in the longer-term impacts on poverty. Some of those will have benefits for the poor, such as more energy efficiency, cleaner air and better public transport facilities. Others could increase energy and food prices, which represent a large share of poor people's expenditures. But, it added, policy shifts need not threaten short-term progress against poverty provided they are well-designed and international support is made available.
The report also said that 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 international community can help by providing financial and technological support for things like crop research, public transport, insurance schemes, and weather forecasting systems.
In the meanwhile ministers and negotiators from more than 75 nations have made headway in talks ahead of a crunch UN climate summit.  But France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius said on November 10, 2015 that the "the task ahead is considerable". Laurent Fabius, who will preside over the conference in Paris to be held from November 30, 2015 to December 11, 2015, told after the three days of talks that ended on November 10, 2015 had been an important step and "progress has been made on at least five points". But he warned, "the task ahead is considerable".  
The UN climate chief Christiana Figueres added, "It continues to be entirely possible to come to an agreement... despite all the challenges in front of us." Fabius announced that 117 heads of state and government - including US President Barack Obama, China's Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi of India and Russia's Vladimir Putin - have confirmed they will attend the summit, tasked with inking a pact to stave off dangerous levels of global warming. A rough draft of that hoped-for agreement has been drawn up by rank-and-file diplomats. The ministers are set to sign the final deal at the end of the Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris. The deal will be underpinned by national pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels blamed for climate change. The "pre-COP" meeting sought to identify areas of potential compromise on issues still dividing global nations and thereby avoid a repeat of the 2009 Copenhagen summit which ended without a binding global pact.
Laurent Fabius said that there was momentum towards ensuring that countries ratchet up their efforts to slash carbon pollution beyond pledges submitted ahead of the summit. He said that "A review should take place every five years... to prepare an upward revision of national plans". Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude oil exporter, filed its climate pledge on November 10, 2015, saying up to 130 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year would be "avoided" by 2030. "'Matter of survival' - Current national plans would yield average global temperatures three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times-far beyond the 2 degree Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) limit that scientists say is the threshold for dangerous warming. Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Peru's environment minister, told that "The COP21 will put in place the mechanism to close the gap. Getting to 2 degree Celsius depends on boosting our ambition". Fabius said that enshrining the principle that nations would not be allowed to backtrack on their carbon-cutting promises is also gaining ground.
Another make-or-break issue on the table in the three-day talks was money for developing nations to help them decarbonise their economies, and shore up defences against unavoidable climate impacts. Thoriq Ibrahim, Minister of the Environment and Energy for the Maldives, one of many small island states whose very existence is threatened by rising seas, told that "Climate finance was very central" to the discussions and "Adaptation is a matter of survival for us. Nobody wants to leave the Maldives, we are there to stay".  
African leaders said they were looking forward to the talks for solutions to electrify their continent, grow its economies and keep their young people from fleeing abroad. The 195-nation UN climate forum has officially adopted the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degree Celsius. But many vulnerable and poor nations are pushing for that threshold to be lowered to 1.5 degree Celsius. Recent scientific studies have shown that even if the 2 degree Celsius goal is attained, the impact could be devastating in many parts of the world. According to a study published by Climate Central, a US-based research group, a 2-degree Celsius rise would submerge land currently occupied by 280 million people, while an increase of 4 degree Celsius would cover areas home to 600 million. Bangladesh is also one of the highly climate change venerable countries in the world.
But one thing is certain that monetary compensation to the affected poor countries by the rich countries is not the solution to the climate problem since the entire globe is in danger of climate warming since air pollution and climate warming know no boundary. For example, developed American and European countries are of late experiencing the bite of climate change. Climate change is a global problem and it has to be faced globally through globally avoiding green house gas emission to save global population from extinction.

The writer is a retired professor of Economics, BCS General Education Cadre.
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