Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-5 (section)

=== 5.1.3 Climate change, gender and equity ===

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Throughout, the chapter considers many dimensions of gender and equity in regard to climate change and the food system (Box 5.1). Climate change impacts differ among diverse social groups depending on factors such as age, ethnicity, ability/disability, sexual orientation, gender, wealth, and class ( ''high confidence'' ) (Vincent and Cull 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r57|57]]</sup> ; Kaijser and Kronsell 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r58|58]]</sup> ). Poverty, along with socio-economic and political marginalisation, cumulatively put women, children and the elderly in a disadvantaged position in coping with the adverse impacts of the changing climate (UNDP 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r59|59]]</sup> ; Skoufias et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r60|60]]</sup> ). The contextual vulnerability of women is higher due to their differentiated relative power, roles, and responsibilities at the household and community levels (Bryan and Behrman 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r61|61]]</sup> ; Nelson et al. 2002 <sup>[[#fn:r62|62]]</sup> ). They often have a higher reliance on subsistence agriculture, which will be severely impacted by climate change (Aipira et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r63|63]]</sup> ).

Through impacts on food prices (Section 5.2.3.1) poor people’s food security is particularly threatened. Decreased yields can impact nutrient intake of the poor by decreasing supplies of highly nutritious crops and by promoting adaptive behaviours that may substitute crops that are resilient but less nutritious (Thompson et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r64|64]]</sup> ; Lobell and Burke 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r65|65]]</sup> ). In Guatemala, food prices and poverty have been correlated with lower micronutrient intakes (Iannotti et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r66|66]]</sup> ). In the developed world, poverty is more typically associated with calorically-dense but nutrient-poor diets, obesity, overweight, and other related diseases (Darmon and Drewnowski 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r67|67]]</sup> ).

Rural areas are especially affected by climate change (Dasgupta et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r68|68]]</sup> ), through impacts on agriculture-related livelihoods and rural income (Mendelsohn et al. 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r69|69]]</sup> ) and through impacts on employment. Jessoe et al. (2018) <sup>[[#fn:r70|70]]</sup> using a 28-year panel on individual employment in rural Mexico, found that years with a high occurrence of heat lead to a reduction in local employment by up to 1.4% with a medium emissions scenario, particularly for wage work and non-farm labour, with impacts on food access. Without employment opportunities in areas where extreme poverty is prevalent, people may be forced to migrate, exacerbating potential for ensuing conflicts (FAO 2018a <sup>[[#fn:r71|71]]</sup> ).

Finally, climate change can affect human health in other ways that interact with food utilisation. In many parts of the world where agriculture relies still on manual labour, projections are that heat stress will reduce the hours people can work, and increase their risk (Dunne et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r72|72]]</sup> ). For example, Takakura et al. (2017) <sup>[[#fn:r73|73]]</sup> estimates that under RCP8.5, the global economic loss from people working shorter hours to mitigate heat loss may be 2.4–4% of GDP. Furthermore, as discussed by Watts et al. (2018) <sup>[[#fn:r74|74]]</sup> ; people’s nutritional status interacts with other stressors and affects their susceptibility to ill health (the ‘utilisation pillar’ of food security): so food-insecure people are more likely to be adversely affected by extreme heat, for example.

In the case of food price hikes, those more vulnerable are more affected (Uraguchi 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r75|75]]</sup> ), especially in urban areas (Ruel et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r76|76]]</sup> ), where livelihood impacts are particularly severe for the individuals and groups that have scarce resources or are socially isolated (Revi et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r77|77]]</sup> ; Gasper et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r78|78]]</sup> ) ( ''high confidence'' ). These people often lack power and access to resources, adequate urban services and functioning infrastructure. As climate events become more frequent and intense, this can increase the scale and depth of urban poverty (Rosenzweig et al. 2018b <sup>[[#fn:r79|79]]</sup> ). Urban floods and droughts may result in water contamination increasing the incidence of diarrhoeal illness in poor children (Bartlett 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r80|80]]</sup> ). In the near destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, about 40,000 jobs were lost (Rosemberg 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r81|81]]</sup> ).

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