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Risk and poverty in a changing climate
2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction Disaster risk drivers: the deadly trio – made
deadlier by climate change
Three major factors, individually and in combination, drive disaster risk and contribute to catastrophe,
especially in impoverished communities.
1. Unplanned urban development – the
gateway to poverty and deprivation
2.Vulnerable livelihoods – a catalyst for
poverty and disaster risk in rural areas
By 2008, over half the world’s population was living in urban
Many rural people’s livelihoods still depend heavily on
areas and on current projections, by 2010, some 73% of the
agriculture and other natural resources where access to
global non-rural population and most of the largest cities
the range of subsistence necessities, including land, labour,
will be in developing countries. The failure of many city
fertilizers, irrigation facilities, infrastructure and financial
governments in developing countries to ensure a supply of
services, is heavily constrained.
safe land for housing, infrastructure and services in line with
Approximately 75% of the people living below the
population growth, or to create a planning and regulatory
international poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day are found in
framework to manage the associated environmental and
rural areas – 268 million in sub-Saharan Africa;
other risks has led to a profusion of shanty towns and
223 million in East Asia and the Pacific and 394 million in
slums, euphemistically designated ‘informal settlements’.
South Asia. Disaster losses affect huge numbers in poor
Approximately one billion people worldwide live in such
rural areas. In sub-Saharan Africa, during the 2001–2003
areas – a figure rising by an estimated 25 million every year.
drought, an estimated 206 million people, or 32% of the
Poor people in urban informal settlements have higher
population, were undernourished, only slightly less than the
levels of everyday risk. Cities in high-income countries
total number of rural poor in the region. Historical patterns
typically have under-five mortality rates of less than 10 per
of land distribution and tenure tend to discriminate against
1,000 live births. In contrast, many developing countries
the impoverished, who may only have access to marginal
have far higher rates. In Nairobi, Kenya, for example, under-
and unproductive land, prone to flooding, or with erratic or
five mortality rates were 61.5 per 1,000 live births for the
minimal rainfall.
city as a whole in 2002, but approximately 150 per 1,000 in
informal settlements.
Rural livelihoods that depend on agriculture and
other natural resources are vulnerable to even slight
Evidence from conurbations in Africa, Asia and Latin
variations in weather and are thus particularly sensitive to
America shows that the inhabitants of informal settlements
climate change, which may lead to even lower agricultural
are also increasingly at risk from weather-related hazards.
productivity; more widespread disease vectors may further
Urbanization per se tends to increase the intensity of run-off
diminish resilience. Inadequate infrastructure, including
during storms leading to heavy flooding, often due to an
housing, schools and other public buildings, is too often a
underinvestment in building and maintaining drains. In fact,
fact of rural life and is exacerbated by disaster: the collapse
many floods are caused as much by deficient or non-existent
of heavy earth walls led to the destruction of 329,579
drainage, as by the intensity of rainfall itself.
houses in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, while the lack of
protection offered by wattle and daub and thatch houses
contributed to the deaths of 140,000 people in the 2008
cyclone in Myanmar.
3.Ecosystem decline – harsh realities are
already apparent
Ecosystems and the services they provide – including energy,
water and fibre – are the very stuff of life: their preservation
is essential for the survival of the planet. However, because
they produce many ecosystem services simultaneously, an
increase in the supply of one, such as food, can frequently
lead to a reduction in others, for instance flood mitigation.
Worryingly, the supply of approximately 60%
(15 of 24) of the ecosystem services recently scrutinized by
the Millennium Assessment was found to be deteriorating,
while for over 80% consumption was on the rise. Put simply,
the flow of most ecosystem services is increasing at the
same time as the total available stock is falling. People have
modified ecosystems to increase their outputs of certain
services but these modifications have catalysed unregulated
behaviour – for example, deforestation for agricultural
purposes and the destruction of mangroves to create shrimp
ponds. While such changes in the distribution of ecosystem
services benefit specific economic interests, the costs are
often borne by poor urban and rural households.
In Peru for example, the opening of new roads down
the eastern slopes of the Andes and into the central jungle in
order to extend the agricultural frontier has led to a notable
increase in the number of reported landslides in that region
since the 1980s.
Climate change: while the rich
consume, the poor pay the price
Exacerbating this deadly trio is the
established and omni-present threat of
climate change, impelled by greenhouse gas
emissions generated by affluent societies
and individuals, with the resulting burdens
falling on developing countries and their
poorest citizens.
It is already well established that a
surface temperature rise in the planet of 2°C
from pre-industrial levels has the potential
for catastrophic collapse in ecosystems
with a disproportionate impact on the most
impoverished. Adverse changes are already
occurring in the amount, intensity, frequency
and type of precipitation, leading to drought,
floods and tropical storms.
In ‘warmer’ years – as measured by
sea surface temperature (SST) – there is a
marked rise in the number of Category 3
and 4 (more intense) cyclones. Even a 1°C
increase in SST is predicted to lead to a
31% annual rise in the global frequency of
Category 4 and 5 cyclones. Significantly,
any escalation in the severity of cyclones will
magnify the unevenness in the distribution of
risk. For example, it is estimated that 1.9%
of the GDP of Madagascar is threatened
annually by Category 3 cyclones but
only 0.09% of the GDP of Japan. If these
cyclones were to increase to Category 4
storms, 3.2% of the GDP of Madagascar
would be endangered but only 0.16% of the
GDP of Japan.
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