Climate induced Poverty: Impediment to Poverty Alleviation in Developing Countries

Abstract

One of the problems facing developing countries of the world is poverty. In some of these countries, there are massive and chronic abject poverty ravaging them and their citizens. The concern is that, the manifestations of the extreme bizarre weather events are causing severe and devastating destruction to human beings and properties; the eco-system is also not spared. Global climate changes are now exacerbating the already worst situation by being one of the major sources of chronic and abject poverty production and severe hunger in the developing countries. The changes are affecting agricultural sector which is the main source of livelihoods for the very poor in the rural remote areas. Undoubtedly, all scientific literatures have confirmed that the poor are the hardest hit considering the fact that majority of them are peasant farmers who cultivates land for food crops, survival and livelihoods. This paper seeks to explain how global climate changes are inducing poverty and becoming more of impediments to poverty alleviation and hunger facing majority of the poorest of the poor in the developing countries. The paper presents an argument for mitigation of climate changes as a short run solution and also impresses on the need for adaptation to climate changes since both concepts are in the forefronts of climate change discourse as solution. The paper concludes that developing countries should strive to continue to promote policy and strategy to mitigate and adapt to climate changes in order to attain sustained economic growth and development.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n3p672