A report shows that the effects of climate change on people living in rural areas vary depending on gender, age and wealth
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According to a new report released this week by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) elderly, low-income women living in rural areas are the group likely to be worst impacted by extreme weather events caused by climate change. The report states that, on average, in low- and middle-income countries female-headed households lose 8 per cent more of their income due to heat stress and 3 per cent more due to floods when compared to male-headed households.
The report goes on to say that if average temperatures were to increase by just 1 degree Celsius then these women would face a 34 per cent greater loss of income than men. Continuing, the report says that if differences between agricultural productivity and wages between men and women in low- and middle-income countries is not addressed then climate change will greatly widen these gaps in the years ahead.
The report was compiled by analysing socioeconomic data from over 100,000 rural households across 24 different low- and middle-income countries. By combining this information with 70 years’ worth of georeferenced daily precipitation and temperature data, the report authors could see how climate stresses impacted people’s incomes and labour patterns. They were then able to differentiate this information based on wealth, gender and age to come up with the report conclusions.
Commenting on the report FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said, ‘Social differences based on locations, wealth, gender and age have a powerful, yet poorly understood, impact on rural peoples’ vulnerability to the impacts of the climate crisis. These findings highlight the urgent need to dedicate substantially more financial resources and policy attention to issues of inclusivity and resilience in global and national climate actions.’
One of the big reasons as to why lower-income, female-headed households face a greater financial impact from climatic changes is due to discrimination and policies that place a disproportionate burden on women for care and domestic responsibilities, limit their rights to land, prevent them from making decisions over their labour and hamper their access to information, finance, technology and other essential services.
Similarly, households led by young individuals have an easier time finding off-farm job opportunities during extreme weather conditions compared to older households. This makes their incomes less susceptible to events such as flooding and temperature extremes.
When it comes to resolving these issues one of the critical findings was that when it comes to rural populations and their climate vulnerabilities in many cases these populations are barely visible in national climate plans. The report findings point out that of the 24 countries analysed in the report, only 6 per cent of the 4,164 climate actions proposed mention women, two per cent explicitly mention youths, less than 1 per cent mention poor people and about 6 per cent refer to farmers in rural communities.
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