Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-4 (section)

=== 4.7.1 Relationships between land degradation, climate change and poverty ===

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This section sets out the relationships between land degradation and poverty, and climate change and poverty, leading to inferences about the three-way links between them. Poverty is multidimensional and includes a lack of access to the whole range of capital assets that can be used to pursue a livelihood. Livelihoods constitute the capabilities, assets and activities that are necessary to make a living (Chambers and Conway 1992 <sup>[[#fn:r846|846]]</sup> ; Olsson et al. 2014b <sup>[[#fn:r847|847]]</sup> ).

The literature shows ''high agreement'' in terms of speculation that there are potential links between land degradation and poverty. However, studies have not provided robust quantitative assessments of the extent and incidence of poverty within populations affected by land degradation (Barbier and Hochard 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r848|848]]</sup> ). Some researchers, for example, Nachtergaele et al. (2011) <sup>[[#fn:r849|849]]</sup> estimate that 1.5 billion people were dependent upon degraded land to support their livelihoods in 2007, while &gt;42% of the world’s poor population inhabit degraded areas. However, there is overall ''low confidence'' in the evidence base, a lack of studies that look beyond the past and present, and the literature calls for more in-depth research to be undertaken on these issues (Gerber et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r850|850]]</sup> ). Recent work by Barbier and Hochard (2018) <sup>[[#fn:r851|851]]</sup> points to biophysical constraints such as poor soils and limited rainfall, which interact to limit land productivity, suggesting that those farming in climatically less-favourable agricultural areas are challenged by poverty. Studies such as those by Coomes et al. (2011) <sup>[[#fn:r852|852]]</sup> , focusing on an area in the Amazon, highlight the importance of the initial conditions of land holding in the dominant (shifting) cultivation system in terms of long-term effects on household poverty and future forest cover, showing that initial land tenure and socio-economic aspects can make some areas less favourable too.

Much of the qualitative literature is focused on understanding the livelihood and poverty impacts of degradation through a focus on subsistence agriculture, where farms are small, under traditional or informal tenure and where exposure to environmental (including climate) risks is high (Morton 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r853|853]]</sup> ). In these situations, poorer people lack access to assets (financial, social, human, natural and physical) and in the absence of appropriate institutional supports and social protection, this leaves them sensitive and unable to adapt, so a vicious cycle of poverty and degradation can ensue. To further illustrate the complexity, livelihood assessments often focus on a single snapshot in time. Livelihoods are dynamic and people alter their livelihood activities and strategies depending on the internal and external stressors to which they are responding (O’Brien et al. 2004 <sup>[[#fn:r854|854]]</sup> ). When certain livelihood activities and strategies are no longer tenable as a result of land degradation (and may push people into poverty), land degradation can have further effects on issues such as migration (Lee 2009 <sup>[[#fn:r855|855]]</sup> ), as people adapt by moving (Section 4.7.3); and may result in conflict (Section 4.7.3), as different groups within society compete for scarce resources, sometimes through non-peaceful actions. Both migration and conflict can lead to land-use changes elsewhere that further fuel climate change through increased emissions.

Similar challenges as for understanding land degradation–poverty linkages are experienced in unravelling the relationship between climate change and poverty. A particular issue in examining climate change–poverty links relates to the common use of aggregate economic statistics like GDP, as the assets and income of the poor constitute a minor proportion of national wealth (Hallegatte et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r856|856]]</sup> ). Aggregate quantitative measures also fail to capture the distributions of costs and benefits from climate change. Furthermore, people fall into and out of poverty, with climate change being one of many factors affecting these dynamics, through its impacts on livelihoods. Much of the literature on climate change and poverty tends to look backward rather than forward (Skoufias et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r857|857]]</sup> ), providing a snapshot of current or past relationships (for example, Dell et al. (2009) <sup>[[#fn:r858|858]]</sup> who examine the relationship between temperature and income (GDP) using cross-sectional data from countries in the Americas). Yet, simulations of future climate change impacts on income or poverty are largely lacking.

Noting the ''limited evidence'' that exists that explicitly focuses on the relationship between land degradation, climate change and poverty, Barbier and Hochard (2018b) <sup>[[#fn:r859|859]]</sup> suggest that those people living in less-favoured agricultural areas face a poverty–environment trap that can result in increased land degradation under climate change conditions. The emergent relationships between land degradation, climate change and poverty are shown in Figure 4.6 (see also Figure 6.1).

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'''Figure 4.6'''

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'''Schematic representation of links between climate change, land management and socio-economic conditions.'''
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[[File:5b4d2ffdf107f778d462e09fd4632854 Figure-4.6-1024x408.jpg]]

Schematic representation of links between climate change, land management and socio-economic conditions.

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The poor have access to few productive assets – so land, and the natural resource base more widely, plays a key role in supporting the livelihoods of the poor. It is, however, hard to make generalisations about how important income derived from the natural resource base is for rural livelihoods in the developing world (Angelsen et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r860|860]]</sup> ). Studies focusing on forest resources have shown that approximately one quarter of the total rural household income in developing countries stems from forests, with forest-based income shares being tentatively higher for low-income households (Vedeld et al. 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r861|861]]</sup> ; Angelsen et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r862|862]]</sup> ). Different groups use land in different ways within their overall livelihood portfolios and are, therefore, at different levels of exposure and sensitivity to climate shocks and stresses. The literature nevertheless displays high evidence and high agreement that those populations whose livelihoods are more sensitive to climate change and land degradation are often more dependent on environmental assets, and these people are often the poorest members of society. There is further ''high evidence'' and ''high agreement'' that both climate change and land degradation can affect livelihoods and poverty through their threat multiplier effect. Research in Bellona, in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific (Reenberg et al. 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r863|863]]</sup> ) examined event-driven impacts on livelihoods, taking into account weather events as one of many drivers of land degradation and links to broader land use and land cover changes that have taken place. Geographical locations experiencing land degradation are often the same locations that are directly affected by poverty, and also by extreme events linked to climate change and variability.

Much of the assessment presented above has considered place-based analyses examining the relationships between poverty, land degradation and climate change in the locations in which these outcomes have occurred. Altieri and Nicholls (2017) <sup>[[#fn:r864|864]]</sup> note that, due to the globalised nature of markets and consumption systems, the impacts of changes in crop yields linked to climate-related land degradation (manifest as lower yields) will be far reaching, beyond the sites and livelihoods experiencing degradation. Despite these teleconnections, farmers living in poverty in developing countries will be especially vulnerable due to their exposure, dependence on the environment for income and limited options to engage in other ways to make a living (Rosenzweig and Hillel 1998 <sup>[[#fn:r865|865]]</sup> ). In identifying ways in which these interlinkages can be addressed, Scherr (2000) <sup>[[#fn:r866|866]]</sup> observes that key actions that can jointly address poverty and environmental improvement often seek to increase access to natural resources, enhance the productivity of the natural resource assets of the poor, and engage stakeholders in addressing public natural resource management issues. In this regard, it is increasingly recognised that those suffering from, and being vulnerable to, land degradation and

poverty need to have a voice and play a role in the development of solutions, especially where the natural resources and livelihood activities they depend on are further threatened by climate change.

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