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ADAPTATION BASICS: CLIMATE CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Climate change risks to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: A UNDP perspective
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) recognize that development rests on the foundations of democratic governance, the rule of law, respect for human rights and peace and security. Many of these foundations and basic economic growth and livelihood security are similarly linked to environment and climate, and will require adaptation to climate change in order for their objectives to be achieved.
MDG 1 | MDG 2 | MDG 3 | MDG 4, 5, & 6 | MDG 7 | MDG 8
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
The challenge: Millions have sunk deep into poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, where the poor are getting poorer. Slow growth of agricultural output and expanding populations have led to setbacks. Since 1990, millions more people are chronically hungry in sub-Saharan Africa and in Southern Asia, where half the children under age 5 are malnourished.
The solution: Increasingly productive economic sectors, stable and safe livelihood opportunities, sufficient infrastructure and policies to ensure market access, and effective governance to provide social programmes and manage government budgets must be delivered.
The climate change risk: Agricultural production and food security, access to clean and abundant water resources and gainful employment that underpin the solution to extreme poverty and hunger are vulnerable to climate change.
The link to UNDP adaptation programming
Goal: Food insecurity resulting from climate change minimized or reversed, and new opportunities for food production resulting from changes in climate exploited.
MDG 2: Ensure that all children remain in school
and receive a high-quality education
The challenge: In sub-Saharan Africa, less than two thirds of children are enrolled in primary school.
The solution: Increased enrolment must be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all children remain in school and receive a high-quality education.
The climate change risk: Climate change stresses pose additional burdens on agricultural production and other subsistence activities like water collection, which may burden families enough to remove children from school. Livelihood activities must become more resilient to future climate for education goals to be met. Climate change also threatens to destroy infrastructure (e.g. schools) and increase the displacement and migration of families thus disrupting and limiting education opportunities.
The link to UNDP adaptation programming
Goal: Food insecurity resulting from climate change minimized or reversed, and new opportunities for food production resulting from changes in climate exploited.
Goal: Mortality, morbidity and economic losses resulting from climate-related extreme events reduced with respect to projected baseline in the face of increasingly frequent and/or severe climate extremes.
MDG 3: Promote gender equality & empower women
The challenge: Poverty has a woman's face. Of the world's 1.3 billion people living in poverty, 70% are women; women do about 66% of the world's work in return for less than 5% of its income. Because two-thirds of children who are denied primary education are girls, women make up 75% of the world's illiterate adults. There is no region in the developing world where women have equal rights as men or have equal representation at all levels of government.
The solution: Gender disparities in primary and secondary education must be eliminated. Sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as women's and girl's property and inheritance rights must be guaranteed. Gender inequality in employment must be eliminated by decreasing women's reliance on informal employment, closing gender gaps in earnings, and reducing occupational segregation.
The climate change risk: Women are likely to be disproportionately vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change because:
• The poor are most vulnerable to climate change risks and women make up the majority of the world's poor;
• Women's traditional roles as the primary users and managers of natural resources, primary caregivers, and laborers engaged in unpaid labor mean they are involved in and dependant on livelihoods and resources that are put most at risk by climate change; and
• Women lack rights and access to resources and information vital to their overcoming the challenges posed by climate change
The link to UNDP adaptation programming
UNDP's 2008-2011 goal for adapting to climate change is for "Countries [to] mainstream climate change adaptation policies into national development plans based on improved understanding of the linkages between climate change and other development issues and gender-differentiated impacts ." (UNDP Strategic Plan 2008-2011, Draft) .
MDG 4, 5, & 6: Reduce child mortality, improve maternal health,
& combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases
The challenge: 11 million children a year - 30,000 a day - die from preventable or treatable causes. More than half a million women die each year during pregnancy or childbirth. 20 times that number suffer serious injury or disability. Malaria & tuberculosis together kill nearly as many people as AIDS, & represent a severe drain on national economies. 90% of malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Tuberculosis is on the rise particularly as a result of HIV/AIDS.
The solution: Most of these lives could be saved by scaling up existing programmes that promote simple, low-cost solutions. A new international protocol to detect these diseases is showing promise.
The climate change risk: Climate change will worsen health primarily through: increased vulnerability to poor health due to reduced food security and water security; water-borne diseases associated with reduced water quality due to floods and drought; more favourable conditions for the spread of vector-borne and air-borne diseases; and the direct link between temperatures and heat stress. (Source: DFID Key Sheets on Climate & Poverty "The Impact of Climate Change on the Health of the Poor".)
The link to UNDP adaptation programming
Goal: Increased burden of disease resulting from climate change reduced.
MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
The challenge: Progress to reverse the loss of the world's environmental resources has not been achieved despite commitments by most countries. Half the developing world still lack toilets or other forms of basic sanitation. Nearly 1 billion people live in urban slums because the growth of the urban population is outpacing improvements in housing and the availability of productive jobs.
The solution: Greater attention to the plight of the poor, whose day-to-day subsistence is often directly linked to the natural resources around them, and an unprecedented level of global cooperation are needed.
The climate change risk: Climate change threatens environmental sustainability because it will cause fundamental alterations in ecosystem relationships, change the quality and quantity of available natural resources, & reduce ecosystem productivity. The poor depend on these resources for their day-to-day survival and livelihoods in many parts of the developing world.
The link to UNDP adaptation programming
Goal: Water stress & scarcity of clean water resulting from climate change reduced.
Goal: Mortality, morbidity and economic losses resulting from climate-related extreme events reduced with respect to projected baseline in the face of increasingly frequent and/or severe climate extremes.
Goal: Mortality, morbidity, economic losses and existing threats to ecosystems arising from enhanced, climate-related coastal hazards reduced.
Goal: Loss of natural resources and associated damage to livelihoods, ecosystems and economy reduced.
MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
The challenge: Developed countries have fallen short of targets they have set for themselves to achieve wide-reaching development objectives.
The solution: Increased aid and debt relief, as well as effectiveness, must be accompanied by further opening of trade, accelerated transfer of technology and improved employment opportunities in the developing world.
The climate change risk: Climate change threatens to exacerbate current challenges to the achievement of the MDGs. Funding for development and adaptation must be greatly increased to meet the needs of the poor.
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