How Climate Change Threatens the Poorest of the Poor

The Millennium Development Goals were commitments made in the year 2000 by the UN to help Africa and other poor regions of the world end extreme poverty, and also to fight the battle against climate change because there is no way to end extreme poverty if climate change runs rampantly out of control. All of Africa and the drylands, which are some of the most vulnerable places in the world to climate change, are experiencing rapid population growth, and the combination fo these demographic pressures and declining rainfall are causing the dislocation of populations, the first climate refugees and displaced populations. There is also an increase in violence, theft, and insecurity with the increase of famine, drought, and populations on the move. As these shocks are happening more and more often, the world doesn’t respond, in something that is sometimes called ‘donor fatigue.’ There will be increasing drought severity, as is indicated by the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) based upon models of precipitation, evaporation, and transpiration that results in chronic drying of the soil. Climate change is essential to the concern about poverty because how is Africa going to feed itself in a world of unconstrained climate change? Climate change puts us on a path of a massive criss of food production when combined with rising world populations. We need a holistic approach to escape poverty, which can only be done if climate change is brought under control. This video is part of the module Energy and Development.

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