CAPE TOWN, June (ANA) - Poor people are the most vulnerable to climate change because their lack of funds means they often live on cheap land exposed to more climate changes, an economist said on Wednesday.
The lead economist at the World Bank, Stephane Hallegatte, who also has many years experience of academic research in environmental economics and climate science was speaking at the Adaptation Futures 2018 -- the world’s leading conference on climate change adaptation held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).
He told delegates that when the work on development poverty and climate change was conducted, “the first thing that we have looked at was household surveys, following households over a very long period of time asking them what kept them in poverty and what are the obstacles that people face when they’re trying to build assets and accumulate wealth and get out of the poverty trap”.
He said that they have found that agriculture income, food prices, natural disasters like storms, and health were the most severe obstacles which had kept people in poverty for a long time.
“And of course all of that interacts and that’s what people tell us, and what's important here is that I’m not talking about a model here but I’m talking about what people say about problems they face. And when you heard that then you can bring the model in and then you realise that these shocks that are already keeping people in poverty will increase due to climate change,” said Hallegatte.
He stated that poor people, more especially in Southern Africa, were also affected by changes in food prices.
“If you are looking at how much people spend on food, and a change in food prices, you will find that poor people tend to spend more than half of their budget, so a ten percent increase on food prices on these people is a game changer," he said.
“So climate impact and climate shocks cause poverty and poverty creates vulnerability to climate change and so we have this feedback loop and the question is today, how do we break that loop.”
- African News Agency (ANA)
