What are the links between poverty reduction and adaptation to climate change? How can these place-specific links be identified in any given context? Three key types of sustainable adaptation interventions target vulnerability-poverty links, reducing both poverty and vulnerability to climate change. These are activities that: 1) address climate risk, 2) strengthen adaptive capacity, and 3) focus on the factors creating vulnerability. Identifying them involves asking: How do people secure or fail to secure needs? What is the influence of climate change on how people secure or fail to secure needs? What new measures or alterations to existing interventions are needed?
Vulnerability is defined as the social and ecological context that shapes the ability to cope or secure well-being in the face of climate variability and change. Vulnerability is generated by multiple factors and processes, such as social relations of resource access, political and economic marginalisation, loss of employment opportunities, and the weakening of social networks. Poverty reduction does not automatically reduce the vulnerability of the poor. Similarly, not all types of climate-related adjustment will reduce the vulnerability of the poor.
The links between vulnerability and poverty can be summarised as: 1) any added risk by climate change to current ways of securing well-being; 2) the particular strategies or adaptive capacity of poor people in the face of climate stresses; and 3) the causes of vulnerability, or specific factors and conditions that make poor people vulnerable to climate stress. Therefore, the types of measures that will effectively target the interface between vulnerability and poverty are those that:
- Target risks to livelihoods posed by climate change, such as water and social infrastructure and cropping systems
- Aim to strengthen the capacity to cope with climate stress, such as engaging in alternative sources of income during drought, accessing forest products, or seasonal movements of livestock for grazing
- Target the causes of vulnerability, such as poor market relations in trading niche drought products, or poor health facilities, the spread of infectious diseases and ensuing household labour scarcity.
In any given context it is critical to understand: how people secure the four dimensions of a decent life (material needs, health and education, rights and social and cultural affiliation); the processes that shape failure in securing needs; how climate change threatens people’s strategies; the particular ways in which people cope and adapt to climate stress; and the main drivers of their vulnerability. Development activities need to take account of the following implications:
- Adaptation is essentially a social development issue in addition to an environmental and technological issue. Realisation of poverty reduction goals can be seriously hampered by climate change.
- Responding to uncertainty forms an important part of adaptation. Adaptation involves adding consideration of climate change vulnerability to present activities. A broader set of measures is required than that which has been the focus of adaptation so far.
- Climate risks, local capacity to adapt, and causes of vulnerability are all place-specific. This places new demands on ODA staff to analyse the character of vulnerability in a given development context and identify the types of measures that are appropriate.
- Identifying sustainable adaptation measures involves a three-step approach:
- Step 1: How do people secure or fail to secure needs? Issues to consider include: livelihood diversification, multilocality, access to resources, structural societal change such as deagrarianisation, and the insecurity of livelihood strategies, particularly in the informal sector.
- Step 2: What is the influence of climate variability and change on how people secure or fail to secure needs? Consider risks posed by climate change and variability to strategies to secure well-being; adaptive capacity, and the causes of vulnerability among poor people.
- Step 3: What new measures or alterations to existing interventions are necessary in order to implement sustainable adaptation?
