The 21st Century climate challenge

2Climate shocks: risk and vulnerability in an unequal worldThe trade-offs forced uponpeople by climate shocksreinforce and perpetuatewider inequalities basedon income, gender andother disparitieswhich can fall between February and April.This frustrated farmers’ attempts to ploughand sow crops. Reduced rainfall during thelong rainy season (the June–September meherrains) caused widespread crop failure. Whenthe subsequent belg season in early 2000 alsosaw poor rainfall, the result was a major foodsecurity crisis. Distress sales of assets—mainlylivestock—began early and continued for 30months. By the end of 1999, livestock sellerswere receiving less than half the pre-droughtprice, constituting a huge loss of capital.However, not all farmers adopted the samecoping strategy. The top two quartiles, withfar more cattle, sold animals early in a classic‘consumption smoothing’ pattern, tradingin their insurance risk premium in order tomaintain access to food. In contrast, the lowesttwo quartiles stubbornly held on to their smallnumber of animals, with only small decreases inlivestock ownership until the end of the droughtperiod. The reason: their animals were a vitalproductive resource for ploughing. In effect, therich were able to smooth consumption withoutdetrimentally eroding their productive assets,whereas the poor were forced to choose betweenthe two. 35Agropastoral and pastoral households,which are even more reliant on livestock fortheir livelihoods, also suffer severe asset lossesduring droughts. As experience in Ethiopia hasrepeatedly shown, the consequences are likely toinclude adverse impacts for their terms of trade,with livestock prices falling sharply relative tocereal prices.Another example comes from Honduras.In 1998 Hurricane Mitch cut a wide path ofdestruction across the country. In this case, thepoor were forced to sell a far greater share oftheir assets than wealthier households in orderto cope with a steep increase in poverty. Byrunning down the productive assets of the poor,the climate shock in this case created conditionsfor an increase in future inequalities (box 2.5).Asset erosion—human opportunitiesMedia images of human suffering during climateshocks do not capture the damaging trade-offsinto which poor households are forced. Whendroughts, floods, storms and other climateevents disrupt production, cut income anderode assets, the poor face a stark choice: theymust make up income losses or cut spending.Whatever the choice, the consequences arelong-term costs that can jeopardize humandevelopment prospects. The trade-offs forcedupon people by climate shocks reinforce andperpetuate wider inequalities based on income,gender and other disparities. Some examples:• Nutrition. Climate shocks such as droughtand floods can cause grave setbacks in nutritionalstatus as food availability declines,prices rise and employment opportunitiesshrink. Deteriorating nutrition providesthe most telling evidence that copingstrategies are failing. The drought thatswept across large areas of eastern Africain 2005 illustrates the point. In Kenya, itput the lives of an estimated 3.3 millionpeople in 26 districts at risk of starvation.In Kajiado, the worst affected district, thecumulative effect of the two poor rainyseasons in 2003 and the total failure ofrains in 2004 almost completely wipedout production. Particularly, decline inthe production of rainfed crops such asmaize and beans harmed both people’sdiet and their purchasing power. Healthcentres in the district reported an increasein malnutrition, with 30 percent of childrenseeking medical assistance found tobe underweight compared to 6 percent innormal years. 36 In some cases, the tradeoffsbetween consumption and survivalcan exacerbate gender bias in nutrition.Research in India has found that girls’nutrition suffers most during periods oflow consumption and rising food prices,and that rainfall shortages are morestrongly associated with deaths amonggirls than boys. 37• Education. For the poorest households,increasing labour supply can mean transferringchildren from classrooms into thelabour market. Even in ‘normal’ years, poorhouseholds are often forced to resort tochild labour, for example during the leanseason before harvests. Droughts and floods86 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2007/2008