The impacts of climate change are global, but these impacts are experienced in different ways in different places. Young people and their families in a vulnerable developing country may become aware of climate change more quickly and directly than if they lived in a developed country, owing to their different social and economic circumstances (which can also affect their ability to respond to climate change, including through adaptation). Without adaptation, climate change could reduce growth in global agriculture yields up to 30 per cent by 2050 – with the world’s 500 million small farms most affected (Global Commission on Adaptation 2019).
We’ve known for a while that conflict and political instability – especially when coupled with extreme weather events such as hurricanes or drought – inevitably lead to poverty, food insecurity, limited access to clean water and sanitation, unreliable infrastructure and displacement. What we’ve learned more recently is how global warming exacerbates all this, at a rapid pace. We know, unequivocally, that the climate crisis will hurt
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the world’s most vulnerable populations first and hardest, but will the 193 United Nations Member States who pledged to “leave no one behind” live up to their promise?