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views or policies of the Asian Development

Bank (ADB), or its Board of Directors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the source, originality, accuracy, completeness or
reliability of any statement, information, data, finding, interpretation, advice, opinion, or view presented, nor does it make any representation concerning the
same.

Andreas Rechkemmer

Political Scientist, Professor

University of Cologne and Beijing Normal University
Chief Advisor for Science and Policy Affairs
Global Risk Forum Davos
Senior Associate
European Association of Development Research and Training
Institutes
Visiting Scholar
Colorado State University
The Poverty-Environment-Climate
Nexus
New Challenges and Responses
for Poverty Reduction

New Delhi, 24 November 2010

The Anthropocene is the period
when human activity has overtaken vast
parts of the natural cycles on the planet,
and has done so in ways that disrupt
those cycles and fundamentally threaten
us in the years ahead.
 The Anthropocene

• The Anthropocene is a term

invented by Paul Crutzen to signify
the fact that human beings for the
first time have taken hold not only of
the economy and of population
dynamics, but of the planet's physical
systems.
• The geologists call our time the
Holocene but Crutzen noted that the
last two hundred years are really a
unique era, not only in human history
but in the Earth's physical history as
well.
 A unique era

• Our era is unique. We've never

before experienced anything like
the human pressures on the
environment as well as the human
successes in sustained and broad-
based improvements of well-
being.
• Ensuring that we can continue
those successes without going
right over the cliff will prove to be
our generation's greatest
challenge.
 Anthropocene’s impacts

The Anthropocene is felt in many areas, e.g.

• habitat destruction, loss of livelihoods and food supply
• rising greenhouse gas emissions, climate change
• freshwater stress, ocean acidification and depletion
• human dominance of the natural nitrogen cycle through heavy
use of fertilizers to feed a world population of 7 billion people
• new diseases
• the vast over-fishing, over-hunting, over-gathering, and over-
exploitation of natural resources leading to population collapses
and species extinction
Lenton, T.M., Held, H., Kriegler, E., Hall, J.W., Lucht, W.,
Rahmstorf, S., Schellnhuber, H.J., 2008. Tipping elements
in the Earth's climate system. PNAS 105, 1786-1793.

system
Tipping elements in the Earth
 Environmental Water Stress

Source: CA study by IWMI, WRI, Kassel University, CA RR #2

 Cartogram: Greenhouse gases Emissions

Countries scaled according to cumulative emissions in billion tonnes carbon

equivalent in 2002. (Patz, Gibbs, et al, 2007)
 Cartogram: Health impacts of climate change

Deaths from malaria & dengue fever, diarrhoea,

malnutrition, flooding and (OECD countries) heatwaves
 Global Environmental Change
and the Millennium Development Goals

Global Environmental
Change
Large costs
for wealth and
development
Growing
Vulnerabilities Undermining
the
possibilities to
attain the
MDGs

Degradation of
Ecoysstem Services
POVERTY and the environment: A known dilemma

The poor must “make rational decisions based on limited

information and within a given institutional or policy
framework, about their labor choices, the risks they are
willing to bear, and factors that affect their health. Thus,
under varying circumstances, it may be optimal for poor
people to mine natural resources, as is the case with soil
degradation in several countries.” (Shyamsundar, 2002)
Actions, such as mining that result in soil degradation may
bring about positive financial benefits in the short term but
can have profound effects in the long-term, such as an
increase in floods due to soil degradation negatively effects
livelihoods and can lead to migration.
The impoverished depend on natural resources when
“monetary income or agricultural produce is unavailable” as
they may be the only assets that they have access to.
Rural Poverty

Is often characterized by land degradation, drought and desertification

(e.g. from overgrazing or unsustainable agricultural activities).
If the rural poor stay on their land, the degradation means that the
productivity will be too low to support the rural inhabitants (Barbier,
2000).
Forced to migration where the cycle of degradation will continue unless
soil conservation education and incentives effectively appear (Barbier,
2000).
The poor may have access to resources that are abundant in their
environments but globally scarce (i.e. forest cover and biodiversity).
Unfortunately, they lack the resources to make the best use of what they
have (such as soil nutrients, labor, health, etc.) (Reardon, 1995).
Hence they lose something that is actually of greater value (such as
forests as carbon sinks).
Urban Poverty
Is often the result of migration from rural areas in order to find basic income
in cities. Such jobs, however, are generally ones in factories or plants that
perpetuate dirty industry rather than mitigating it.
“Particulate pollution from cement mills may only be dangerous in one urban
region, acid rain from sulphur emissions may damage forests hundreds of
miles from the source, and eutrophication from fertilizer runoff may affect
ocean fisheries a thousand miles downstream from the farms that are the
source of the problem”. (Susmita, Dasgupta, et al.)
There is a significant difference between the poor in land-rich and the ones
in land-scarce societies (Naraina, Guptabvan 't Veld). In land-rich
societies, the poor are more likely to be poor due to a lack of a strong or
cost-effective work force or injury (which can be a temporary condition).
In land-scarce societies, the poor are more likely to be poor due to their lack
of access to land or their lack of gainful employment (which is likely to be
a permanent condition).
Moreover, living in close proximity to others in informal housing settlements
can be detrimental to health.
Mutual Intersection: a Vicious Cycle
“Poverty and third world debt … result in resource stripping just to survive or pay
off debts. For example, Nepal and Bangladesh have suffered from various
environmental problems such as increasingly devastating floods, often believed
to be resulting from large-scale deforestation.
Forests around the world face increased pressures from … local populations that
use forest resources. Increasing populations are placing excessive burdens on
the world’s resources.”
Environmental degradation is intensified by population growth and economic
marginalization, which then puts more stress on the impoverished.
“Poverty is … a significant constraint on agricultural growth because of poor
people’s need to concentrate resources on lower-value food crops to ensure
subsistence security and their difficulties in mobilizing production and
investment resources.” (Scherr, 2000)
Movements from rural areas to cities in an effort to find work tend to diversify
income-generating activities to raise or maintain the income. The wages of the
poor may not be high enough. The urban poor may be working in factories that
let out high carbon emissions. The may also turn to urban farming practices to
avoid nutritional deficits and sell their surplus food (Foeken, 2008).
 In order for livelihoods to be sustainable, they
must be resilient to stresses and shocks (for
instance droughts and floods) without weakening
the foundation of resources. Aggravated by
climate change.
If the livelihoods of the poor are not sustainable,
coping with environmental effects of resource
overuse can further impoverish these individuals.
For instance, the poor may need to deal with
reducing consumption, migration costs, or
household depletion as a result of living in a non-
sustainable manner.
(Scherr, 2000)
 Future challenges for ASIA

• Accelerated urbanization (coastal areas,

30 megacities)
• Increasing vulnerabilities (globalization,
mobility, critical infrastructures and
services)
• Real and virtual markets
• Food insecurity
• Water scarcity, sanitation
• Health toll
• And… Climate Change
 Multi hazard/ multi risk approach needed
FLOODS

CYCLONES

EARTHQUAKES/ TSUNAMIS
n t h e
o r se )
i l l w DROUGHTS
e n c y
GLOBAL CLIMATE
g e w e q u
CHANGE
c h a n n d f r
LANDSLIDES
a t e a l e a
C l
LAND DEGRADATIONi m ( s c
a t i on
PANDEMICS si t u CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES
FAILURE
FINANCIAL CRISES
TECHNOLOGICAL HAZARDS

BIOLOGICAL THREATS

TERRORISM
Stopping the Vicious Cycle of Poverty and Environmental Degradation

– We need a strategy which will improve environmental sustainability, climate

change mitigation and adaptation, and ecosystems resilience, while reducing
poverty effectively.
– The poor need to preserve the resource base so that there is always a cushion
in case of disaster (this disaster can be natural or anthropogenic).
– The poor should be enabled to work on diversifying the types of produce (not
relying solely on staple, easy-to-produce foods).
– Case studies have found that “local people develop technical and institutional
innovations in natural resource management (NRM) to reduce risks and adapt
to or reverse degradation, even as pressures increase” (Tiffen et al., 1994).
Such experience needs to be assessed and communicated.
– We need a renewed perspectives on MDGs beyond 2015
 Why to focus nowadays on
resilience?
Resilience put emphasis on what communities can do for themselves and how to strengthen their capacities
•
 Adaptive Governance
– The roles of knowledge, culture, norms, habits etc.
– Vertical & horizontal interplay
– Dynamics of multi-level governance
– Multi-actor focused
Interaction of actors, their sometimes conflicting
objectives, and the instruments chosen to steer
social, economic and environmental processes
within a particular policy area.
Institutions are a central component, as are the
patterns of interaction between actors and the
multilevel institutional setting, creating complex
relations between structure and agency.
Adaptive Governance
Multi-level
governance
Co-
management
and adaptive
Topical management
approach

e.g. Adaptive Adaptive

Ecosystem co- governance
manageme manageme
nt nt

After Per Olsson,

Stockholm Resilience Centre
 Summary: Integrated Action

Institutions and governance:

• Changes in institutional and environmental governance
frameworks for effective management of ecosystems.
Economics and incentives:
• Economic and financial interventions as instruments to regulate
the use of ecosystem goods and services.
Social and behavioural responses:
• Public education, civil society action and empowerment of
communities can be instrumental in responding to ecosystem
degradation.
Technological responses:
• Development of technologies designed to increase the efficiency
of resource use and reduce impacts of drivers of environmental
change.
Knowledge responses:
• Effective management of ecosystems is constrained by a lack of
knowledge and information.
Human-driven erosion of resilience

• impacting on ecosystem via emissions of waste,

pollutants and climate change
• removing biological diversity, whole functional groups of
species or whole trophic levels
• altering the magnitude, frequency and duration of
disturbance regimes

• The combined effects of those pressures makes

ecological systems more vulnerable to changes that
previously could be absorbed

Source: IGBP 2007

 Thank you!

andreas@rechkemmer.net