Climate-proofed and inclusive:

Climate-proofed and inclusive:

Context:

Policy-makers in India and other developing countries face a big problem to address poverty and climate change together.

Dimensions of Poverty

• Poverty is multi-dimensional. People living in poverty in various parts of the world share multiple conditions and life circumstances that have been measured and studied as a proxy to assessing poverty.
• The conditions that are often considered while assessing poverty include living standards, assets, health, income, consumption and status in the societies.
• Therefore, measures such as nutrition, quality of the floor and roof of houses, access to energy services and drinking water, the level of education, jobs, and social conditions such as caste all become relevant when one tries to understand the different manifestations of poverty.
• Some countries like Mexico, Colombia, and Chile use several dimensions to record poverty using the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI).
• Measures such as MPI help us to estimate not only how many people are poor, but also the quality and depth of their poverty.

Status of Poverty in India

• In India, the government uses income or consumption to estimate poverty, with specified thresholds associated with the ‘poverty line’.
• On this basis, using consumption expenditure data, the erstwhile Planning Commission estimated poverty in India to be 22% of the population in 2011-2012.
• Estimated rural poverty: 25.7%
• Estimated urban poverty: 13.7%
• The most recent MPI (Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index) for India calculated using India Human Development Survey data of 2011-12, estimates that 41% of the people were multi-dimensionally poor.

How are the poor impacted by Climate change?

• The anticipated adverse effects of climate change in South Asia are droughts, floods, heat waves, sea level rise and related problems such as food shortages, the spread of diseases, loss of jobs and migration.
• The poor are often on the front lines of climate change, living in the most vulnerable areas with the fewest resources to help them adapt.
• Climate change disproportionately affects the poor. It’s the poor who suffers more during disasters, and of course, the same hazard causes a much bigger disaster in poorer countries, making it even poorer.
• Another impact is through the reduction in crop yields, which leads to higher prices. Poor countries in the drier and warmer regions of the earth will feel the crop yield decrease early.

Challenge for India

• In 2015, countries agreed to meet 17 universal goals by 2030. These goals are officially known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• The Sustainable Development Goals cover a broad range of concerns for human welfare: food security, education, poverty alleviation, access to safe and adequate water, energy, sanitation etc.
• It is critical for India to recognise that climate variability and climate change impacts can prevent the country from reaching and maintaining the SDG targets.
• Along with the consumption measures, measuring poverty through its different dimensions would help policymakers figure out which aspects of poverty expose the poor and aggravate their vulnerability to climate change.

Climate- proofed and inclusive development

• Projects and programs designed to help people adapt to the effects of climate change should not inadvertently degrade the living conditions of the poor
• Adaptation programmes should be designed so that challenges faced by people living in poverty are recognised and reduced.
• Development policies that consider the context of climate change is often called “climate proofing development”.
• Multi-dimensional understanding of poverty becomes important in this context of research and policy.
• Measuring poverty through its different dimensions, along with the consumption measures, would help policymakers figure out which aspects of poverty expose the poor and aggravate their vulnerability to climate change.

Examples:

1. There is a district with severe nutritional deficiency. The same district has the possibility of experiencing extended periods of drought from climate change. In such a case, the focus should be on improving local food access and combine this with managing water efficiently to prepare for future water shortages.
2. The focus should be on improving sanitation and housing conditions in low-lying areas which are prone to increased flood events.

Conclusion:

• Population and production in many developing countries are highly dependent on natural resources and often have limited adaptive capacity. Many of these countries thus are the ones most seriously affected by climate change.
• The need of the hour is thus, ‘climate-proofed’, sustainable and inclusive development efforts.