The climate is changing rapidly, resulting in a range of new risks and vulnerabilities for rural people. The sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finds that because of human activity, global temperatures have already increased by 1.1°C compared to temperature in the pre-industrial era, and this increase is projected to reach or exceed 1.5 °C within the next 20 years, if not sooner.

As a result of climate change, extreme weather events are intensifying and becoming more frequent; heat waves are increasing in intensity and duration; seasons are changing, and global water cycles are intensifying, leading to more frequent and severe droughts and floods.

Studies show that these changes have profound effects on agricultural systems and on the livelihoods of the rural people who depend on them. The most direct effect is the impact on agricultural production and productivity. Among the key challenges posed by climate change to agriculture are the effects of global warming. Crop production, livestock production and fish production are all highly sensitive to extreme temperatures.

While climate change is a global crisis, its impacts on different countries, communities and individuals are highly unequal. Inequalities are also great within countries: differences in resource endowments, livelihood orientations, biophysical environments, and access to services, markets, and institutions make some people considerably more vulnerable to climate change than others.

Frequent exposure to weather anomalies undermines rural folk’s economic capacity and deters them from making any long-term investments altogether

Many of these differences are rooted in historically and socially embedded processes of exclusion and marginalisation, which result in stark disparities in people’s abilities to cope with and adapt to climate change, thus not only exposing the social and economic inequalities between people and communities but also perpetuating and deepening them.

Rural people are often found to be particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. This vulnerability is due to several factors, including the importance of climate-dependent agriculture in livelihoods, high rates of poverty and food insecurity, and the weakness and limited availability of markets, services and institutions.

Moreover, people in rural areas face a diversity of social and economic challenges, which leads to substantial differences in climate vulnerability within rural areas. Structural inequalities related to wealth, gender and age, among other social identities, can shape people’s access to resources and information, decision-making power and the social agency required to respond to a rapidly changing climate. As a result, some groups of people are much more vulnerable to climate change than others.

Extreme weather events are widening income gaps within rural communities and limiting prospects for inclusive growth and poverty reduction. Furthermore, extreme weather events such as floods and heat stress reduce the incomes and well-being of poor and female-headed households more than those of other segments of the rural population. The magnitude of these losses is staggering.

For vulnerable people, this interaction can reinforce and perpetuate conditions of poverty and marginalisation in two primary ways.

First, reductions in productivity caused by climate-related events can undermine people’s economic capacity to invest in future production and adaptation measures, including investments in farm inputs, technologies, labour and equipment.

Second, frequent exposure to climate-related events has important psychological effects and can make people less willing to make new investments in their agricultural systems, pushing them to prioritise short-term investments over longer-term ones. These effects are strongly influenced by the resources and services, including credit and insurance services, that are available to a person to mitigate income losses and adapt to future climate stresses.

The livelihoods and production systems of rural people living in poverty exhibit distinct features that can increase their sensitivity to climate change. People living in poverty are more likely to rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Moreover, they tend to operate production systems that are very small in scale and make limited use of capital-intensive inputs such as improved seeds, technology, and fertilisers.

They also often operate under rain-fed conditions, which are becoming more uncertain and erratic due to climate change. As a result, labour and land productivity are generally low among these populations, with production-oriented primarily toward personal consumption over sales.

However, acknowledging rural people in policy documents is just the first step. Policy commitments must be translated into concrete and effective actions as well.

The author is a development professional and author of the book “Earthly Matters”.

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Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, January 20th, 2025