A report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of tḥe United Nations (FAO), titled “The Unjust Climate”, provides, for the first time, concrete evidence from 24 countries on the magnitude of the challenge posed by the climate crisis for rural people in socially and economically vulnerable positions due to their wealth status, gender, and age. It demonstrates clearly that extreme weather events and long-run climate change are disproportionately affecting the incomes of rural people living in poverty, women, and older populations.
The report shows that the magnitude of the challenge posed by climate change for vulnerable rural people is staggering. For example, in low and middle income countries floods widen the gap in incomes between poor and non-poor households by more than 4%, amounting to a reduction compared to non-poor households of $18 per capita or $21 billion a year in aggregate across all low and middle income countries.
According to the report, a 1° C increase in long-term average temperatures reduces the average income of female-headed households by 34 percent compared to that of male-headed households. Additionally, households headed by older people are found to lose 3 percent of their income due to floods and 6 percent due to heat stress per year, relative to households headed by younger people.
The report urges the global community to do more to tackle the impacts of climate change on rural people and focus resources and policy support on the specific needs of socially and economically marginalized populations.
The report is available at https://www.fao.org/3/cc9680en/cc9680en.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email