Taking the Heat: The Effect of Global Climate

Change on the Poor

Ashley WellsENGR 314

What’s the Issue?

“The big challenges of the 21st century are overcoming world poverty and managing climate

change and we succeed or fail on those two together.” ~Nicholas Stein, Professor at Loudon

School of Economics

Economic?

Scientific?

Political?

Moral?

Why Do the Poor Feel Change the Most?

Geography (coastal plains and current environment)

Direct dependence on surroundings for food and water

Inability to adjust because of cost

Kenya

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/east_africa.html

Effects in Africa

• Walking longer distances for water

• Extreme annual drought for an already dry continent

• Heat increase• Inconsistent and little to

no rainfall• Malnutrition and

starvation• Increased number of

livestock deaths• Increased mortality • Country strained

economicallyhttp://www.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/media/page.cgi?g=Detailed%2F170.html;d=1

http://www.global-changes.com/kenya-drought-east-africa-in-crisis/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28579290

Drought of 2009•In January, the government declared a national state of emergency due to the failed harvest.

•This declaration allowed the government to divert funds from other programs to buy food for the people.

•The planned response:

•Giving out free fertilizer, seed, and farm equipment.

•Giving the poor in urban communities and areas directed affected by drought

•The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) fed over 2 million people

Bangladesh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw8q2t1SYko&feature=channel

Effects in India

http://www.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/media/page.cgi?g=Detailed%2F170.html;d=1

• Increasingly worse flooding

• Large floodplains cover most vital and fertile land.

• Coastal plains now under more frequent and stronger cyclones and tornados

• Erratic rainfall• Sea level rising • Displacement• Death of people, crops

and livestock• Economic strainhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,480847-2,00.html

Rising Sea Levels•The lives of the people of Bangladesh are fully dependent on the resources from the Bay of Bengal.

•The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicates that sea levels in the Bay will rise 45 cm by the year 2050.

•80% of the inhabitants of Bangladesh live in the delta and floodplain area, which is only 1 meter above sea level.

http://www.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/media/page.cgi?g=Detailed%2F170.html;d=1

http://geobytesgcse.blogspot.com/2006/12/flooding-in-ledc-1998-floods-in.html

Bolivia

Effects in South America

http://www.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/media/page.cgi?g=Detailed%2F170.html;d=1

http://www.swedishpublicradio.com/indexb.htm

• Approx. 80 million South Americans depend on the glaciers in the Andean Mountains for water.

• Increased heat and climate change disrupts the natural freezing and melting of precipitation. As a result, what used to be a natural irrigation system and water supply no longer stores water.

• Lack of water• Failed crops

Solidarity: Relationships with Developed and Developing

Countries• Per Capita CO2 Emissions

– Average Kenyan – 300 kg/year– Average European – 10 tons/year– Average American – 20 tons/year

• At the UN Climate Change Conference there are approximately 100 countries (home to 1 billion) present that are responsible for less than 3% of the CO2 emissions. These are the countries that feel the effect of the other 97%!

• This has a strong effect on the relationships between developed and undeveloped countries

• “If we do not accept that we are interconnected, we are doomed.” ~Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus, South Africa

• Negotiations for how this is to be balanced have already begun. – Developed countries are now discussing how to prevent increasing

emissions– What aid can be given to help developing countries adapt to the effects of

our actions

• United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization states that this negotiation will be the focus at COP15 in Copenhagen.

• GLOBAL EFFORT!

http://www.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/media/page.cgi?g=Detailed%2F170.html;d=1

“Solidarity is also an authentic moral virtue, not a ‘feeling of vague

compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and preserving determination to commit oneself to the common good. That is to say to the good of all and of

each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”

-Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, part I, c. 4, paragraph 193