• Climate change hits the poorest people the hardest, those living in vulnerable areas with the fewest resources to help them adapt or recover quickly from shocks. As the effects of climate change worsen, escaping poverty becomes more difficult. 

• We have a window now for ending extreme poverty and putting in place the safety nets that can keep poverty at bay while also cutting emissions. Experts in poverty and climate change at the World Bank Group are working with researchers around the world to develop policy guidance and recommendations that can help.

The photos we see of crops withering in fields from lack of rain or of homes splintered by a storm provide only a glimpse of the damage climate change can do to the world’s poor.

Peel back more layers, and the interplay between poverty and climate change becomes more complex.

The herder who loses one or two cows to famine amid a drought may feel he has little choice but to sell other livestock at very low prices – the only prices he can get – to keep his family fed. The family may survive the crisis, but they will have lost productive economic assets they relied on, assets that had paid for the children to attend school and were helping the family move out of poverty. The children lose the advantage of an education, the herder has lost an economic base to build from, and he becomes less likely to take risks that could increase his income. Escaping the poverty trap becomes more difficult.

Governments can help poor families get through climate shocks with more of their assets intact and build resilience to longer-term climate changes while also working to reduce the drivers of climate change.

Experts in poverty and climate change at the World Bank Group are meeting with researchers around the world this year to help develop policy guidance and recommendations that can help.To end poverty requires action on both poverty and climate change – quickly.

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