Climate Change and Environment

Climate change and environmental degradation are urgent global problems with no respect for geographical boundaries. Although they ultimately affect all people, all over the world, those who currently bear the greatest brunt of environmental degradation and disasters linked to climate change are the poorest. This is partly because their livelihoods are generally based on agriculture, fisheries and forests which are susceptible to climatic change, and partly because they often live in places that are vulnerable to disasters such as floods, hurricanes and mudslides.

Reporting by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly show that climate change disproportionately affects the poorer regions of the world. Yet these are also the regions that are the least energy consuming and have thus contributed the least to climate change – a fact that has triggered many demands and suggestions of ways to redress this fundamental injustice. Negotiations on such matters are made at a country to country level, and the mechanisms by which their poorest citizens will be compensated for the losses experienced as a result of global warming are far from clear. One mechanism that has generated particularly hot debate in this regard is that of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD).

For more information on SDC’s Global Programme on climate change and the environment, please visit: http://www.sdc.admin.ch/en/Home/Themes/Climate_change_and_Environment