Question

Discuss some of the reasons why poorer households are generally expected to be disproportionately affected by climate change, AND some of the reasons why poorer households may miss potentially profitable opportunities to adapt to climate change.

Answer 1

Climate change refers to a change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely towards the increased levels of atmospheric carbon di oxide produced by the fossil fuels. Although climate change has serious effects on all the strata of the society, its effect on the poorest section of the society is more evident. Gradually shifting weather patterns, rising sea levels and more extreme weather events all have devastating events on them. The events like wildfire, hurricanes and droughts also have some serious effects on them. It threatens the worlds food supply, drive people from their homes and jeopardize livelihoods to a great extent. For those who are struggling to earn a living and feed their families these events make them more disastrous.

                                    Climate change always undermines development gains and leads to shortages in basic necessities like food and water. It threatens the cleanliness of air, depletes water resources and limits the food supply. Researches showcases that the soil of the earth is being lost at a rate which is 10 to 100 times faster than its formation. The climbing temperatures and declining rainfall adds to the scenario thereby making life more miserable for the poor. Since these effects primarily affect the agriculture, the poor households who depends on them gets affected at the first thereby depriving them of their income of living. More than 80 percent of the drought damage was absorbed by the agriculture during the period from 2006 to 2016 according to the statistics. These food shortages and decline in the income forces these poor people to leave their home and even the nation and make them a refugee. Since climate changes results in unpredictable weather patterns, the lives f these farmers are made more miserable.

                                    As far as fighting the climate change is considered, these strata of the society are left behind the other sections of the society and hence fails to take the advantage in reclimbing to their lives. Fighting the climate change always remains the mercy for these strata of people. The better positioned sections of the society who have more access to the available resources always take advantage of getting the benefit out of getting back to normalcy. Although the governments takes positions to reach out to the lower strata during the reclimbing process, it is a fact that most of the efforts are lost in the way and never reaches them. Moreover, the education levels of these people remains low which allows the other sections of the society to take advantage over them. Thus it has to be analysed that the poor strata of the society, especially the farming sections are most affected by the climate change and remains neglected while trying to adapt to it.