The Unjust Climate - FAO Report

The Unjust Climate - FAO Report

News: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently released a report titled “The Unjust Climate,” highlighting the varying impacts of climate change on income and adaptation in rural areas based on gender, wealth, and age.

Background:
• FAO analyzed socioeconomic data from over 100,000 rural households representing more than 950 million people across 24 LMICs (Lower Middle Income Countries).
• The study integrated this information with 70 years of georeferenced daily precipitation and temperature data.

Key Findings:

Impact of extreme heat and extreme precipitation
• Each day of extreme heat leads to a 2.4% loss in on-farm incomes for poor rural households. A 1°C temperature increase would result in a 33% decrease in off-farm incomes for rural poor households.

Income Inequality Widening Due to Climate Stressors
• Daily extreme precipitation causes poor households to lose 0.8% of their incomes relative to non-poor households. In an average year, poor households lose 5% of total income due to heat stress and 4.4% due to floods compared to better-off households.
• Floods and heat stress widen the income gap between poor and non-poor households in rural areas by approximately USD 21 billion and USD 20 billion a year, respectively.

Maladaptive Coping Strategies
• Poor rural households adopt maladaptive coping strategies, including distress sale of livestock and reducing investments in agriculture during extreme weather events. These coping strategies make them more vulnerable to future climate stressors.

Inadequate Inclusion in National Climate Policies
• Rural people and their climate vulnerabilities are largely absent in national climate policies.
• Less than 1% of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and national adaptation plans (NAP) mention poor people, with only about 6% referring to farmers in rural communities.
• Only 7.5% of tracked climate finance in 2017-18 was allocated to climate change adaptation, with less than 3% directed to agriculture, forestry, and other land uses.
• Agricultural policies often neglect gender equality, women’s empowerment, and intersecting vulnerabilities related to climate change.

Key recommendations
• Targeted interventions to empower various rural populations to engage in climate-adaptive measures are crucial to address climate change issues.
• It becomes necessary to address the multidimensional climate vulnerabilities of rural people and their specific constraints, including their limited access to productive resources.
• It is recommended to link social protection programmes to advisory services that can encourage adaptation and compensate farmers for losers, such as cash-based social assistance programs.

FAO’s Initiatives to Tackle Climate Change

Inclusive Climate Actions:
o FAO’s Strategy and Action Plan on Climate Change embeds inclusive climate actions.
o Mainstreaming climate change impact in the FAO Strategic Framework 2022–2031, focusing on better production, nutrition, environment, and life for all.

Global Roadmap for SDG 2:
o FAO’s Global Roadmap for Achieving SDG 2 without breaching the 1.5 °C threshold emphasizes simultaneous considerations of gender inequalities, climate actions, and nutrition.
o Actions encompass these dimensions and promote inclusivity for women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples.