Let’s combat climate change with people living in poverty!

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ATD International underlines the need to tailor climate change response measures to the needs of the most vulnerable. If governments fail to combat climate change with people living in poverty, it is very likely that response measures will work against these vulnerable communities.

“People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalized are especially vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation.”

The international community therefore has an obligation to ensure that climate agreements and adaptation and mitigation actions include poverty eradication as a primary objective, acknowledging that they have direct bearing on the post-2015 agenda and poverty eradication.

If governments fail to combat climate change with people living in poverty, it is very likely that response measures will work against these vulnerable communities.

ATD proposes that the new agreements provide that Parties:

  • Recognise that social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities, and seek to exploit synergies with other development agendas including the Post-2015 sustainable development agenda.
  • Utilize a reporting and monitoring structure that permits the disaggregation of data and then analysis to ensure the most vulnerable communities are adequately protected by climate-change policy.
  • Ensure adaptation and mitigation strategies are funded with the aim of impacting the most vulnerable communities, particularly those living in poverty.

Read ATD’s Climate Change Position Paper produced in May 2015.

Read in French ATD France’s press release during the major UNESCO Conference “Our Common Future Under Climate Change” (7-10 July), Paris