Climate change could push over 100 million people back into poverty in the next fifteen years, according to a report by the World Bank on Sunday.
The recent report, Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty, stated that effects of climate change will mostly hit the poorest regions of the world in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In India alone, 45 million people could be pushed back into poverty by 2030 due to agricultural shocks and increased incidences of disease, the report indicates.
According to the bank's estimations, in 2012, 896 million people lived on below $1.90 per day, compared with 1.95 billion in 1990, and 1.99 billion in 1981. In the same period, around 78 percent of the extremely poor lived in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, respectively 389 million and 309 million.
'Climate impacts will affect agriculture the most, a key sector in the poorest countries and a major source of income, food security, nutrition, jobs, livelihoods and export earnings,' the report said.
By 2030, food prices might be 12 percent higher in terms of crop yield losses in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report.
'The strain on poor households, who spend as much as 60 percent of their income on food, could be acute. The resulting malnutrition could lead to an increase in severe stunting [of the population] in Africa of 23 percent,' the report said.
The report also suggests measures to be taken such as redistributing energy taxes and introducing 'well-designed emission-reduction programs' to strengthen the productivity of agriculture.
More than 150 nations are expected to meet in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, for COP21 2015 Paris Climate Conference, in a bid to strike a deal on carbon emissions regulations meant to keep the global average temperature within two degrees Celsius of what it was at the dawn of the industrial revolution.
COP21 aims to achieve a legally binding international agreement, although the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which tried to reduce greenhouse emissions, was not ratified by all governments throughout the world.
By Ugur Serhan Ozcan, Ugur Ertas
Anadolu Agency
ugur.ozcan@aa.com.tr