Tackling Climate Change Will Be A Pyrrhic Victory If We Lose Sight Of The Poor – Global Issues
ROME, Sep 03 (IPS) – Marco Knowles leads FAO’s Community Protection Team Urgent climate action is key to ending hunger and poverty, but climate mitigation policies can inadvertently exacerbate these problems in rural areas. Countries should design climate strategies that account for impacts on the rural poor and include social protection measures.
Last July, we were faced with a shocking statistic: 733 million people will die of hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people worldwide. In Africa it was even higher, with one in five people hungry. Climate change is a major cause of this problem.
Paradoxically, well-intentioned policies to combat global warming may become the cause of hunger, especially for small-scale farmers in poor countries, unless these policies are accompanied by measures to reduce their social and economic decline.
Gradual changes in temperature and rainfall patterns are reducing returns to agriculture, on which poor people rely heavily, and rapid events such as floods and droughts are destroying their crops and livestock. According to the World Bank, climate change could push an additional 135 million people into poverty by 2030. Urgent measures to combat climate change are therefore essential in the fight against poverty and hunger.
However, if we are not careful, climate mitigation efforts can undermine progress in ending poverty and hunger. A recent example is the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation Products which was introduced in June 2023. This regulation aims to ensure that products bought and used in Europe do not contribute to deforestation through the expansion of agricultural land for production. cattle, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil or coffee.
On the other hand, reducing deforestation is critical to combating climate change and would benefit the 1 to 2 billion people who depend on forests for their livelihoods.
But on the other hand, the costs of these policies fall disproportionately on poor rural people who lack the resources and capacity to comply, including those who currently rely on deforestation for their livelihoods – which is estimated to account for nearly a third of deforestation. .
As the governments of 17 countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia have previously warned, the EU Regulation is already having serious negative impacts on poor people in poor countries, especially smallholder farmers.
Without support, they face great challenges in adapting to complex, new practices, and at the same time they often lack the energy and resources to maintain or increase their agricultural production without increasing the area of cultivation – this is even more true in the changing climate that reduces agricultural yields.
While progress on the climate agenda must continue apace, the social and economic trade-offs of climate policies for different groups of people – especially those most vulnerable – need to be addressed from the outset. Countries, especially those where poverty and hunger are prevalent, need support and encouragement to integrate environmental policies and measures that enable smallholder farmers to adapt to new conditions or transition to new and more dignified livelihoods.
Social protection – which includes policies and programs aimed at addressing poverty and vulnerability – can play an important role in mitigating these changes. In the short-term, by providing regular cash income as compensation for any negative social impacts of climate policies and, in the long-term, by combining these payments with technical support, skills training and livelihood interventions that can help people adapt successfully under the new policy regimes.
This method is already used in several countries.
In China, forest protection measures affected approximately one million community forestry workers and 120 million rural households by reducing access to forest services. To mitigate these impacts, public employees received assistance, such as employment services, unemployment benefits and pension plans. As a result, two-thirds of the affected workers were transferred to other jobs or retired, while 124 million families benefited from income transfers.
In Brazil and Paraguay, social protection and complementary agriculture programs support rural households to adopt sustainable and profitable farming practices. Paraguay Poverty, Reforestation, Energy and Climate Change The program (PROEZA), provides households that participate in the leading social protection program in the country, Tekoporawith technical support and extra money. Because of this, small farmers are changing their agricultural methods to be able to withstand the frequent droughts and increasing the production of indigenous plants such as yerba mate.
Similarly, in Brazil, the Bolsa Verde The program provides cash payments to beneficiaries of the national social cash transfer program, Bolsa Familia, in exchange for maintaining or restoring forests, protecting water sources, and promoting sustainable agriculture.
Governments should be encouraged and supported to introduce and scale up social protection measures to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable do not bear the brunt of the climate crisis and the greening of human consumption in rich areas of the world.
We must therefore prioritize an approach that takes a closer look at the social and environmental consequences of policies to deal with climate change. Social security systems have an important role to play in building a mutually beneficial future for People and the Planet.
Marco Knowles leads FAO’s Social Protection Team. His areas of expertise include increasing access to social protection in rural areas and implementing social protection through climate action. He also has extensive experience in providing evidence-based food security policy assistance and capacity development support.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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