Climate Change: Impact on Global Poverty Levels - Essay Sample

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has in the recent research indicated their concern on the increase sizzling summers, more violent storms, rising levels of the seas, and floods as a potential implication of climate change. The climate changes have affected the dynamics of population changes around the globe, causing an alarming increase in poverty levels in countries (Bruton, Ahlstrom, and Si, 2015, pp.1-22). Therefore, the implications should prompt policymakers to set policies that would help regain normal climatic conditions. Besides, mitigation policies should be used to help slow the climate changes and, at the same time, reduce the population living in poverty. Increasing population growth in the country and around the globe poses a significant threat to the implications of climate change. Asia is a region that contains large groups of people who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. For instance, urbanization has increased the activities in the real estate industry, leaving little or not room for agricultural production. The paper will discuss the policies relevant to high fertility, resulting in an increased population, protecting the people living in the informal settlement in urban cities and carbon dioxide emission control.

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The dynamics of population change in a country in relation to the factors that affect their daily activities, especially activities by women is dictated by experiences of climate change (Garschagen and Romero-Lankao, 2015, pp.37-52). Thus, there is an existing connection between these population changes, the poverty challenges, and resolutions of issues concerning climate change.

Urbanization and Poverty

Urbanization is a population dynamics that result from rapid population growth in the country and an increased need for personal economic growth. However, urbanization could be related to increased poverty and climate change as a result of constrained resources (Alkire et al., 2014). Increased productivity for any business is critical at making sure that profit is optimized and that the needs of an ever-growing population are met (Browne, 2014, pp.1-9). Unfortunately, these aspirations in the country have profoundly contributed to the increased build-up of gases and especially greenhouse gases in the world of industrialization. The diagram below indicate the levels of greenhouse gas emission from each economic sector in the country. Therefore, this has resulted in the profoundly felt impacts of climate change, including long periods of drought, floods, declined agricultural productions, and extreme weather that can barely be predicted. The implication of climate change makes it difficult for countries whose main economic activity is agrarian production; thus, people will experience increased poverty in their communities.

Source: RECCSA1 country studies

(https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sector-Share-in-Total-Final-Energy-Consumption-South-Asia-Excluding-India-2005-2030_fig3_261527566)

Besides, other than climate change impact on agricultural production, urban cities can be profoundly affected by sea-level rise. Water rise damages the economic development of the areas due to the destruction of infrastructure, including electricity, aquifers that supply water into the city, and roads (Mathur, 2013, pp.1-122). Therefore, individuals will not experience development as a factor that could pull the people into bankruptcy and, in the end, increase the levels of poverty in the country. Upon realizing the impacts of climate change, women are the most affected population in a country. Therefore, being the primary caregivers to their children, women will bear the effects of extreme weather changes but, in most cases, lack the resources to solve the concern (Thomas, Albert, and Hepburn, 2014, pp.381-398). Women in society are not allowed into leadership positions so that they lack political, economic, or legal power. The political power in any country helps drive the development and growth of a country through sustainable activities.

In most cases, women understand what the environment needs and what is not sustainable because of their frequent interactions (Dahiya, 2012, pp.S44-S61). Therefore, the failed implementation of such knowledge and power during development leads the country into exploiting the sustainable limits. As a result, the productivity of lands reduces risks in a state to experience food insecurity.

Climate change is a crucial determinant of the unforeseen poverty outcomes basically because these outcomes depend on the demographic changes as well as economic growth. The impacts of climate change is manifested in increased prices, reduced productivity, a decline in asset value, and opportunities (Zhou, 2014, pp.976-992). For instance, urbanization has seen most people move to the urban cities in Asia, leaving very few people in rural areas to practice agricultural production. Therefore, most households in such a setting will spend more money on food, which increases the risk of prices rising and becoming volatile with time. Climate change is bound to reduce the productivity of food products resulting in food insecurity (Mahendra Dev, 2012). Urban cities have had an increasing rate of informal settlement where a large population lives. Unfortunately, these people, when affected by the impacts of climate change, the poverty level increases a notion higher (Jayanthakumaran, 2016, pp. 215-248). The infrastructure makes it impossible to access essential needs such as food, health care, and safety. Therefore, they are not able to obtain enough of what they need, a factor that mainly affects women, especially because they are the primary caregivers to their children. Therefore, in cases of climatically changing, women are responsible for providing the essential needs to their families despite the size of the family.

Source: Poverty & Equity Databank and PovcalNet (https://nasrinsiddiqui.wordpress.com/tag/poverty-headcount-at-2-5-and-4/)

Policy Setting

Climate change is a critical aspect that everybody around the world should seek to address to reduce the severity of climate change in the society. Addressing climate change will require that all relevant authorities work towards creating and implementing policies that would help mitigate and stop the factors that cause climate change. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can only be removed by creating mitigation strategies that would harness change in the use of energy (Hanif, 2018, pp.16-24). Understanding that increased urbanization causes these climate changes or put the massive population at the verge of risks that come as a result of climate change, it is crucial that well-thought policies are created. Substantial strategies that would help solve the needs of the vulnerable population, including those living in the urban areas and the women whose fertility has led to high rates of population growth.

Source: (Ritchie and Roser, 2017)

First and foremost, women as the most vulnerable population group to the implications of climate change, it would be important that reduce the population growth to manageable rates. Therefore, family planning by policymakers should be included as policies in consideration of their human rights in response to the climatic changes. Currently, productivity women are not in a position to choose from a variety of family planning methods because they face a lot of hindering barriers. As a result, the unmet need to plan their families' outcomes to a population pressure that will, in the end, outpace the development and growth efforts of the people in the country. However, resilience building for controlled changes climatically is complicated when women are not able to control the number of children they give birth to as well as how to space them (De Silva and Tenreyro, 2017, pp.205-280). Frequent childbirth in a country impacts negatively on the health and well-being of women in society together with their families because they are the people responsible for taking care of them.

Fortunately, society has, in the past few years, recognized with the need and role of family planning in adapting and reducing the implications of climate change (Basten and Jiang, 2014, pp.493-509). Therefore, the acceptance and positive attitude towards the mitigation has created a strong basis from which the solution could be turned into a policy. The ongoing debate seek to promote the accessibility of voluntary and human rights-based information relating to quality family planning. Improved access to family planning among all women in a country will assist the women in maneuvering out of poverty because the policy will reduce the total births as well as reduce the birth rates from the high-risks population. Family planning effectiveness will address the issues of high fertility rates in the country and the increased vulnerability of climate change as a result of the increased population. Besides, the policy would help slow the growth of greenhouse gases because family planning strengthens the household and social resilience to future climate implications (Tyler and Moench, 2012, pp.311-326).

Policy Opportunities

Policy knowledge and understanding among policymakers allow us to predict the impacts of climate change and move ahead to take precautionary measures to intervene before it occurs (Argueso et al. 2014, pp.2183-2199). The precaution would effectively help deal with the impacts of climate change as a result of urbanization in the short run. The country, through science, should educate individuals to assist in better projections so that the people are more resilient to how they conduct their activities (Porio, 2014, pp.75-102). For instance, scientists could help inform the public when they should move out of threatened by the impacts of climate change. Although urban cities have modern and better living standards, a large population still lives in the informal settlement and, therefore, the most affected group by climate change (Yap, 2016, pp.166-172). Although the rapid growth in the urban population in the informal settlement has been in existence, limited policies have been developed and implemented for adequate access to social protection (Chamhuri, Karim, and Hamdan, 2012, pp.804-814). Therefore, this is an opportunity for the government and other relevant authorities to create policies that harness individual's accessibility to affordable and climate-resilient housing.

Nonetheless, climate change is experienced differently by the male and female population in a country based on existing gender inequalities in the world. The condition affects how individuals and different societies adapt to the changing climate. Luckily, the world has recognized the essential women's contribution as critical stakeholders, educators, decision-makers, and care in creating reliable and effective long-term solutions to climate change. The opportunity given to women has brought about an influential move towards equitable and sustainable resolutions of this change (Dahiya, 2014, pp.84-91). Women play a critical role in enhancing change adaption and mitigation by the community because they have the knowledge required in adaptation. Statistical analysis indicates that women, through empowerment, could be in a position to deliver the necessary results starting from the decisions at a household to the national level.

The women population group is vulnerable to the implications that result from climate change, given the heavy burdens they hold in situations of poverty. Women have been subjected to gender inequality in the longest time possible, leaving them out of the decision making process. These labor markets have...