Climate change – scoping the issues

(xii) International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
IFAD sees climate change as one of the most serious threats that the world currently faces. Poor rural people are the most vulnerable, but they have the potential to play an important role in climate change mitigation. IFAD believes there must be opportunities for poor rural people to adapt to, and cope with climate change, and they must to be part of the solution.⁸⁸
Poor rural people in the developing world are the least responsible for producing greenhouse gases that are causing the Earth’s climate to change. Nearly one billion people survive on less than US$1 a day. About 75 per cent of them live in rural areas. They are subsistence farmers, nomadic herders, day labourers and fishers. Many live on ecologically fragile land: mountains, coastal areas and deserts. They depend on vulnerable sectors: agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry. Poor rural people lack the institutional and financial capacity to protect themselves against climate change. But they manage vast areas of land and forest, and can be important players in carbon sequestration. Helping them adapt to climate change in a sustainable way is an economic, social and moral imperative⁸⁹.
Indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable. They have a special role to play as stewards of our natural resources and biodiversity, yet they are often pushed out of their ancestral lands and onto the least fertile and most fragile lands.
Global warming is a universal problem but the response, whether adaptation or mitigation, needs to be tailored to local contexts. For 30 years, IFAD has been helping poor rural people living in marginal, rainfed areas at risk from water shortage, land degradation and desertification. Through its past operations, IFAD has supported the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and gained considerable expertise in combating land degradation and desertification, as well as sustainable land and natural resource management. IFAD draws on this experience in helping poor rural people adapt to climate change in a local context. ⁹⁰
Through loans and grants schemes, IFAD is addressing such issues as desertification and changes in cropping patterns due to climate variability. In response to the growing magnitude of climate change, IFAD is increasingly integrating adaptation into its operations and contributing to mitigation programmes in a way that will make them beneficial to poor rural people.⁹¹