Impacts of climate change on livelihood by zewde alemayehu tilahun

ARBA MINCH UNIVERSITY
School of Graduate Studies
College of Social Science
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies
Program: PhD in Environment and Natural Resource Management
Course: Climate Change, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies (GeES-812)
Presentation on Impacts of Climate Change on Livelihood
By: Zewde Alemayehu
Instructor: Teshome Yirgu (PhD, Associate Professor)
Arba Minch, Ethiopia
November 2018 1

Introduction
Climate change in IPCC usage refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be
identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its
properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.
 It refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of
human activity. This usage differs from that in the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), where climate change refers to a change of climate that is
attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global
atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable
time periods (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007).
2

Introduction…
 Nowadays, global climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges.
 Weather extremities such as droughts, floods and cyclones occur more frequently and
forcefully, causing insecure living conditions, food shortage and forced migration.
 It is the pressing responsibility of the international community to work together and reverse
global warming, as well as to provide assistance to those most vulnerable to global weather
extremities.
 Countries in sub-Saharan Africa increasingly need to deal with the practical consequences of
this phenomenon and need to manage the specific political challenges that lie ahead.
 In the most vulnerable communities, the impacts of climate change pose a direct threat to
people’s survival.
3

Introduction…
 Climate change has brought an escalating burden to already existing environmental concerns
of Ethiopia including deforestation, serious soil erosion and loss of top soil and land
degradation which in turn have adversely impacted agricultural productivity.
 This phenomenon is occurring throughout the country and affecting every community
although it may assume diverging degrees from place to place as the country has varied
landscape featured by contrasting altitudinal ranges.
 The united Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) identified two
broad responses: ‘mitigation of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and
enhancing sinks, and adaptation to the impacts of climate change’.
4

Introduction…
Mitigation is defined as ‘an anthropogenic intervention to reduce the source or enhance the
sinks of greenhouse gases and adaptation is ‘adjustment in natural or human systems in
response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or
exploits beneficial opportunities’ (IPCC, 2007).
5

Definitions of livelihoods
Livelihoods are ‘means of making a living’, the
various activities and resources that allow people
to live.
A livelihood is sustainable when it can:
cope with, and recover from stress and shocks (drought, flood, war, etc.),
maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the
natural resource base”.
“Livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets
(including both material and social) and activities
required for a means of living. (Chambers and
Conway, 1992).
Definition
Livelihood
6

Components of the livelihoods framework
Livelihoods are determined by multiple factors
a combination of different types of information is
needed to understand them, including:
Vulnerability context
Livelihood resources or assets
Policies, institutions and processes
Livelihood strategies
Livelihood outcomes or goals
7
 "A livelihood, on the other hand, is engagement in a number of activities which, at times, neither require a formal agreement nor are limited to a
particular trade. Livelihoods are based on income derived from "jobs", but also on incomes derived from assets and entitlements. "

Livelihood…
 A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources)
and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with
and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both
now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base. (Carney, 1998)
8
Department for International Development (DFID’s) Sustainable Livelihoods Framework
(adapted from Carney, 1998)

Livelihood…
The Department for International Development (DFID) Sustainable Livelihoods Framework
presents a number of factors that impact on livelihood strategies and outcomes and also
emphasizes the many relationships between these factors.
Central to the framework is a pentagon of interchangeable livelihood assets or capitals (i.e.,
natural, social, physical, financial, and human capitals.
9

Livelihood…
 Capital assets (Adapted from Scoones, 1998; in Carney, 1998)
10
Capital Assets
Natural Capital The natural resource stocks from which resource flows useful for livelihoods are
derived (e.g., land, water, wildlife, biodiversity, environmental resources).
Social Capital The social resources (networks, membership of groups, relationships of trust,
access to wider institutions of society) upon which people draw in pursuit of
livelihoods.
Human Capital The skills, knowledge, ability to labour and good health
important to the ability to pursue different livelihood strategies.
Physical Capital The basic infrastructure (transport, shelter, water, energy, and
communications) and the production equipment and means which enable people to
pursue their livelihoods.
Financial Capital The financial resources which are available to people (whether
savings, supplies of credit or regular remittances or pensions) and which provide
them with different livelihood options.

Livelihood…
The resultant livelihood strategies are composed of a variety of natural resource
based and non natural-resource based activities that ultimately have effects on
livelihood security and environmental sustainability.
11A framework for micro policy analysis of rural livelihoods (adapted from Ellis, 2000)

Livelihood…
The cyclical framework places the issue of individual and household access to five slightly
different ‘capital’ assets (produced, human, social, natural, and cultural) as central to:
1) the combination and transformation of these assets to create livelihoods,
2) the expansion of these assets through state, market and civil society determined
relationships with other actors, and
3) the enhancement of capabilities with the objectives of making life more meaningful,
increasing levels of influence in the governance of resources, and transforming of resources
into income.
12
Assets, livelihoods and poverty framework (adapted from Bebbington, 1999)

Impacts of Climate Change on Livelihood
 The impacts of climate change will be felt in many ways, by many groups and people around
the globe.
 Most probably climate change affects poor people, because of their weak adaptive capacities.
The economic cost in such countries is high given the agricultural sector’s contribution to
livelihood, production, and employment.
Moreover, poor countries can incur huge costs from a small deviation in climate, particularly
due to their poor adaptive capacity, lack of necessary technology, and lack of resources to deal
with climate change (Zhuang, 2009)
13

Impacts of Climate Change on Livelihood…
 Seo and Mendelsohn (2008) suggested that low-latitude economies with large shares of rain-
fed and subsistence agriculture are especially vulnerable and may see reductions in
agricultural income of 60 percent or more by 2100.
 Climate change is now a global phenomenon with growth, poverty, food security, and
stability implications.
 Because of significant dependence on the agricultural sector for production, employment, and
export revenues; Some of the most important impacts of global climate change will be felt
among the populations, predominantly in developing countries, referred to as ‘‘subsistence’’ or
‘‘smallholder’’ farmers.
14

Their vulnerability to climate change comes both from being predominantly located in the
tropics, and from various socioeconomic, demographic, and policy trends limiting their
capacity to adapt to change.
Subsistence and smallholder livelihood systems currently experience a number of interlocking
stressors, other than climate change and climate variability, The complex interaction of such
stressors in increasing vulnerability can be illustrated with reference to pastoralists of the
Horn of Africa and elsewhere.
 Ethiopia - one of the poorest countries in the world and highly vulnerable to the impacts of
climate change – it is essential to promote a more human-focussed approach to climate change
adaptation.
15

 Climate change impacts will disproportionately affect sub-Saharan African countries such as
Ethiopia because their economies are highly dependent on climate-sensitive activities such as
rain-fed agriculture.
 The climate change impact on agriculture is believed to be stronger in Sub-Saharan Africa
(Kurukulasuriya & Mendelsohn 2007).
 During drought and delay in the onset of rain land becomes dry and difficult to plough, forage
deficit leads to weakness and oxen mortality (engine of subsistent cultivation), and lack of
precipitation hinders seed cultivation and germination of cultivated seeds.
 Even weeks delay in the onset of rain was found to have significant difference on the harvest
and has deprivation of households’ livelihood.
16

Ethiopia is seriously threatened by climate change, which contributes to frequent drought,
flooding, and rising average temperatures.
Ethiopia has lost a cumulative level of over 13 percent of its agricultural output between 1991
and 2008.
 If the rate of decline in the average annual level of rainfall continues over the medium term,
Ethiopia will forgo, on average, more than six percent of each year’s agricultural output. The
poverty impact of rainfall variability is enormous.
The impacts of existing and predicted changes in climate vary across economies.
17

Climate change and the associated environmental degradation are emerging as big challenges
to Ethiopian agriculture and poverty alleviation efforts.
 Agriculture is the main pass-through mechanism from climate change and environmental
degradation to poverty.
In Ethiopia, agriculture contributes about 47% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) and more than 70 million people (85% of the Ethiopian population) depend on
agriculture directly or indirectly for their livelihoods (Index Mundi, 2014).
18

Many believe agriculture is the most susceptible sector to climate change.
This is attributed to the fact that climate change affects the two most important direct
agricultural production inputs, precipitation and temperature (Deschenes & Greenstone
2006).
Climate change also indirectly affects agriculture by influencing emergence and distribution
of crop pests and livestock diseases, exacerbating the frequency and distribution of adverse
weather conditions, reducing water supplies and irrigation; and enhancing severity of soil
erosion (Watson et al. 1998; IPCC 2001).
19

Therefore, any effect on agriculture will significantly affect the Ethiopian economy.
It is predicted that changes in climate will lead to recurrent droughts and heavy rainfall in
different parts of Ethiopia, reducing the amount of land that can be used for agriculture and
decreasing crop productivity.
For example, the 2006 flood in Gambela region damaged about 1650 hectares of maize and
reduced crop productivity by 20% as a result of waterlogging of farmland (Gambela Region
Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency, 2007).
This meant a loss of income for the country and also exacerbated food shortages and
malnutrition problems in the region.
20

21
climate change impact, vulnerability and coping mechanisms assessment.

 The impacts of climate change on the environment could also reduce the national income
from the export of agricultural products such as coffee, pulses and flowers.
 Of particular concern is the possible impact on Ethiopia’s famous Arabica coffee, which is
exported all over the world.
 Coffee plants are very sensitive to climate change and there are concerns that Arabica coffee
production could become impossible in Ethiopia by the end of this century if the change
continues at the current rate.
 Ethiopia is home to Africa’s largest livestock population, and is the world’s tenth-largest
producer of livestock and livestock products (MacDonald and Simon, 2011), which make up
about 10% of the country’s foreign currency earnings (Pantuliano and Wekesa, 2008).
22

Frequent and extensive droughts in the country have a considerable effect on Ethiopia’s
livestock because decreased rainfall shrinks available water resources and reduces the
productivity of grassland and rangeland.
The main causes of livestock deaths in Ethiopia are shortages of water and food during
drought (IFAD, 2009; MacDonald and Simon, 2011).
Increased temperatures can affect the behaviour and metabolism (internal body processes) of
livestock, such as a reduced intake of food and a decline in productivity (IFAD, 2009;
Thornton et al., 2009).
23

Changes in rainfall and warmer temperatures may also increase the geographical distribution
and survival of vectors like flies and mosquitoes that transmit infectious diseases to livestock
(IFAD, 2009; Thornton et al., 2009).
These impacts on livestock are already being felt in Ethiopia; in the past decades in Borana
zone, southern Ethiopia, there have been losses of livestock associated with drought.
24

Like drought, flood has a significant impact on livestock.
Animals can be drowned or washed away by flood.
Flood also covers large areas of grazing land with water, making it impossible for the animals
to find food.
In addition to affecting agriculture and livestock, floods can cause huge damage to property,
livelihoods and infrastructure.
This occurred in the 2006 floods in Dire Dawa city, as described in the extract from a
government report Impact of the 2006 flood on the Dire Dawa city economy.
 The flood significantly damaged the livelihoods of 9956 displaced persons in Dire Dawa city,
washing away their homes and significantly damaging individual assets such as shops, private
enterprises and market stalls.
25

Approximately 2685 households were reported to have lost their homes.
An additional 1000 homes were also damaged by the flood waters.
The damage to livelihood assets had been assessed by the Dire Dawa Investment Bureau, the
Dire Dawa Small and Micro Enterprise Agency and the Trade and Industry Office of Dire
Dawa.
The Investment Bureau found that ten investors lost an estimated 13,162,981 ETB from
property damage by the flood.
The Dire Dawa Small and Micro Enterprise Agency assessment reported that 882 people
incurred losses of 6,697,992 ETB and the Trade and Industry Office also reported the loss of
10,193,302 Birr incurred by 116 traders.
26

Infrastructure was also severely damaged including roads, the Dechatu River main bridge
which cost 2.4 million ETB, Taiwan and Halfkat Irish Crossing and the retaining wall of the
Dechatu.
In addition, several electric and telephone utility lines and poles were destroyed resulting in a
black out in parts of kebeles 05, 06, 07 and 09 for several days.
The damage was reported to have incurred the electric and telephone sectors estimated loss of
Birr 500,000 and Birr 6,098.36 respectively.
On top of these infrastructure damages, all roads found within a 40m radius from the river
were completely covered with silt.
27

Its removal and clearance cost about ETB 517,100. In the surrounding rural areas of Dire
Dawa, approximately 257.6 hectares of crops (cereals, vegetables, fruits and cash crops) in 17
kebeles were damaged and six houses were washed away.
Soil and water conservation infrastructure in all these kebeles, water schemes in seven
kebeles and irrigation schemes in five kebeles, were significantly damaged.
Climate Change on Poverty
Poverty has both income (purchasing power) and non-income dimensions (access to health
and education services), which are related to each other.
Climate change can affect both dimensions of poverty, either directly or indirectly.
28

The transmission mechanism from climate change to income poverty is through its impact on
production and productivity.
This depends on whether the dominant sector is highly susceptible to climate change and the
extent to which the poor rely on it.
Looking into the structure of the economy and the distribution of the population, agriculture
has been the main stay of the Ethiopian economy.
The sector in Ethiopia is highly vulnerable to climate variability due to its structure.
29

The success or failure of Ethiopian agriculture has significant consequences for overall
growth, poverty, and poverty alleviation efforts in the country.
The first channel through which climate variability affects income poverty in Ethiopia is
through its effect on the incomes of the agricultural/rural poor.
Poor farmers with lower adaption capacities will be affected most (Irish Aid, 2007).
When agriculture fails due to poor climate conditions, the poor operators in the rural areas
will receive low incomes leading to livelihood insecurity.
30

The impact of climate change on the income dimension of poverty can be seen through the
following ways:
i) by reducing local production of food items;
ii) by putting pressure on the global cereals production; and
iii) by eroding the income and asset base of the poor.
 Climate change is projected to reduce the country’s agricultural production by a cumulative
level of 32.5 percent of the output, making Ethiopia increasingly dependent on food imports.
31

 The same problem is estimated to shrink the world’s crop production by 2 to 6 percent by
2030 and by 5 to 11 percent by 2050, relative to the ‘reference case’ (Wright, 2007).
 Also, non-agricultural practices in the rural areas are highly linked with agriculture.
 If the agricultural sector performs well, it creates opportunities for non-farm employment for
the poor by motivating producers to invest their surplus in microenterprises in rural areas.
 In addition, agricultural performance can influence the incidence of poverty in urban areas
through its implications on urban economic engagements.
32

As clearly constructed by Rahman (2007), climate change in terms of increased temperature
and changes in precipitation can lead to lowered industrial output and labor productivity.
According to Rahman, this can also lead to high inequality, affect international trade, and
suppress fiscal and macroeconomic balances, thus further leading to reduced economic
growth and widespread poverty.
Climate change can affect the poor through its impact on food prices as production fails (Irish
Aid, 2007).
Price data from Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia reveal that food prices have more than
doubled in just five years since 2005, which is partly caused by crop failures both
domestically and globally.
33

This is particularly serious for the Ethiopian poor who spend a significant portion of their
incomes on food items.
The increasing domestic food prices force the government to import additional cereals from
the international market and distribute to the poor on subsidized rates which itself has
budgetary implications on other development projects.
This implies a need for rapid agricultural growth, particularly in food items, by adapting and
mitigating the adverse consequences of climate change.
34

Extreme access to water can spread diarrheal disease, dengue fever and malaria, as the
conditions favor disease-carrying insects. During periods of extreme conditions such as
serious drought and flooding, people tend to migrate and leave their original locations.
Such actions can terminate education and other public services.
Such health hazards affect the poor due to their strategic vulnerability. On top of that, climate
change induced problems such as chronic food shortages, conflict, and forced migration can
limit schooling and education attainments, which in turn affect poverty at the household level.
When there is climate change induced food insecurity, and conflict over resources (such as on
water, farming and grazing land), students tend to drop out of schools.
35

Related mass migration can also force people to terminate their education, which can impact
various social indicators such as life expectancy and death rates (Irish Aid, 2007) in addition
to a medium term impact on human capital development.
All these factors in aggregate make climate change a critical problem for mankind especially
in developing countries like Ethiopia.
Increased climate variability means additional threats to drought-prone environments and is
considered a major crop production risk factor.
 It forces farmers to depend on low-input and low-risk technologies, leaving them unable to
adopt new technologies that would allow them to derive maximum gains during favorable
seasons and less able to recover quickly after disasters.
36

Increasing climate risks undermine development and poverty reduction efforts in drought-
prone areas.
Future climate variability and change will aggravate these problems even more in drought-
prone environments.
Climate change can also affect the lives of the poor by limiting access to traditional sources of
energy due to the depletion of forest cover (Aster, 2010).
Moreover, climate change can bring with it health threats that put pressure on quality of life
and on health expenditures.
37

 As we know climate change has already created costs in Ethiopia, such costs include the
drying of lakes like Lake Alemaya, decreasing the water volume of lakes and rivers which
leads to serious seasonal electric power interruptions, increasing drought length and
frequency, and some unprecedented heavy rains leading to over-flooding in the lower basins.
 With its extreme dependence on rain-fed agriculture for income and food.
 Hydroelectricity as a source of power, Ethiopia is yet to face more challenges in accelerating
sustainable growth as a result of climate change.
 Despite the multifaceted impact of climate change in Ethiopia, it is possible to develop a
rough estimate of the past and short-run effects of climate change on growth and poverty by
concentrating on its impact on agriculture. This is for at least three reasons.
38

 First, agriculture is by far the dominant producer, employer, and main source of foreign
currency.
 Second, structurally, the agricultural sector is highly susceptible to the causalities of climate
change.
 Third, the agricultural population constitutes the significant majority of the Ethiopian poor
and highly vulnerable people.
 Agricultural production and productivity has quick and direct implications on the urban poor
by affecting availability and access to food.
 Climate change can affect both dimensions of poverty, either directly or indirectly.
 The transmission mechanism from climate change to income poverty is through its impact on
production and productivity.
39

 This depends on whether the dominant sector is highly susceptible to climate change and the
extent to which the poor rely on it.
 Looking into the structure of the economy and the distribution of the population, agriculture
has been the main stay of the Ethiopian economy.
 The sector in Ethiopia is highly vulnerable to climate variability due to its structure.
 The success or failure of Ethiopian agriculture has significant consequences for overall
growth, poverty, and poverty alleviation efforts in the country
40

 Across most of Ethiopia, households report lack of/erratic rainfall as the main risk
contributing to their food insecurity and overall vulnerability.
 The poorest farmers rely especially on food-based coping strategies such as reducing the
quantity or quality of meals.
 Similarly, they rely on livestock sales often selling their last productive female or temporary
labour migration.
 Several weredas in the Afar region have become increasingly vulnerable to flood risk as a
result of more intense rainfall in shorter periods and land degradation.
 The Afambo wereda in Afar is especially vulnerable. Five of the eight kebeles in Afambo
reported flood as most recent disaster that affected their community.
41

Floods in the wereda have caused crop and livestock damage, lower access to grazing land,
loss of arable land, increased incidence of human and livestock disease, destruction of
irrigation structures and houses, destruction of roads and water points, gully formation and
human displacement.
Water pollution associated with flooding is another environmental challenge that exacerbated
incidences of disease outbreaks in the wereda.
 The communities in the wereda perceived that rainfall is becoming erratic.
 Flooding is becoming more common due to two factors: increasing deforestation, and loss of
vegetation which occurred during the long period of drought in the 1980s and 1990s.
42

The community also perceived that the quality of the land is deteriorating because of flood
and wind erosion as the top soil is washed away.
 As reported by the community members, the major vulnerability factors for increasing flood
risk in the wereda include settlement of people in vulnerable areas (lowlands/plains), absence
of flood prevention structures, settlement along the river bank (mainly the Awash River) and
the overflow of the river, poor structure housing that cannot withstand flooding, and heavy
rainfall in the highland areas of neighbouring weredas.
 Global warming and accompanying hydrological changes are likely to affect all soil
processes in complex ways, including by accelerated decomposition of organic matter and
depression of nitrogen-fixing activity Kundzewicz et al.
43

 The location of a large body of smallholder and subsistence farming households in the dryland
tropics gives rise to especial concern over temperature-induced decline in crop yields, and
increasing frequency and severity of drought.
These lead to the following generalizations: increased likelihood of crop failure; increased
diseases and mortality of livestock and/or forced sales of livestock at disadvantageous prices;
livelihood impacts including sale of other assets, indebtedness, out-migration and dependency
on food relief; possible feedbacks through unsustainable adaptation strategies into
environmental degradation including loss of biodiversity; and eventual impacts on human
development indicators such as health and education.
44

 Climate-change impacts are already occurring in the Greater Himalayas (Cruz et al. 2007).
The most widely reported effect is the rapid reduction of glaciers, which has implications for
future downstream water supplies (Barnett et al. 2005).
 Ongoing climate change over succeeding decades will likely have additional negative impacts
across these mountains, including significant cascading effects on river flows, groundwater
recharge, natural hazards, and biodiversity; ecosystem composition, structure, and function;
and human livelihoods (Parmesan 2006).
45

Climate also determines biodiversity, and the Greater Himalayas have much higher
biodiversity values than the global average (K¨orner 2004).
 Changes in hydrology can influence biodiversity in a variety of ways; moisture availability
governs physiology, metabolic and reproductive processes, phenology, tree-line positions, and
the geographic distribution of freshwater and wetland habitats (Burkett et al. 2005).
The impact of climate variability and change on agricultural production is a global concern.
 Devastating and recurrent droughts caused by varying rainfall patterns occur frequently in
many parts of Bangladesh, causing substantial damage and loss to agriculture and allied
sectors.
46

The impact is particularly important in Bangladesh where agriculture is the largest sector of
economy, accounting for some 35 percent of GDP and 63 percent of the labour force.
 Agriculture in Bangladesh is already under pressure from increasing demands for food and
the parallel problems of depletion of agricultural land and water resources from overuse and
contamination.
 Climate variability and projected global climate change makes the issue particularly urgent.
 Adaptation to climate change is one of the approaches considered likely to reduce the impacts
of long-term changes in climate variables.
47

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