Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change: Why Rural Groups Are Most at Risk

Climate change is happening at a rapid scale and speed, giving rise to a set of new risks and vulnerabilities. Human activities like burning coal and fuel for industrial growth have led to global warming, which has wreaked havoc on global temperatures. According to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global temperatures are anticipated to exceed 1.5 °Celcius within the next 20 years, if current trends stay. 

Escalating Frequency of Extreme Weather Events

Climate change has given rise to extremely intense weather events that have become more frequent. Notably, the number of major climate-related disasters reported worldwide has nearly doubled in the period from 2000 to 2019 compared to the previous two decades. 

Also, heat waves are growing in intensity and duration with changing seasons, promoting a surge in harsh droughts and floods, subsequently altering global water cycles. 

Climate Change Impacts On Rural Communities

Studies have indicated the adverse impact of impacts of droughts and floods on agricultural systems. This places indigenous groups at greater risk, whose entire livelihood depends on agricultural practices. 

Rural climate vulnerability is best evident in agricultural productivity and production. Livestock production, crop production, and fish production are all at the mercy of extreme temperatures. 

Unequal Distribution of Climate Change Impacts

Although climate change is indeed a global crisis, its detrimental impacts are unequally distributed across every region, country, and community. It is therefore important to highlight how climate change and income inequality are related to one another. 

This is all because of differences in biophysical environments, access to resources, and unevenness in access to services, institutions, and markets. This explains why economic losses from extreme weather events affect some groups more than others. 

Most of the differences are also rooted in socially and historically entrenched processes of marginalisation and exclusion. This is visible in striking differences in people's abilities to adapt to a changing climate. 

How Social Identities Influence Climate Resilience

Climate vulnerability isn't just about geography; it's deeply tied to social identity, such as gender, age, ethnicity, wealth, as well as structural inequalities. Groups like smallholder farmers and landless laborers are often directly dependent on climate-sensitive agriculture. 

Their livelihoods are immediately affected by changes, yet they may lack the formal education or institutional support to fully understand and navigate the complex risks to food security and poverty associated with climate change.

Differences in social identities and structural inequalities inevitably influence people's access to information and resources, decision-making power, and the social agency needed to respond to a rapidly changing climate.  

However, rural communities aren't uniform. The diverse economic and social challenges faced by different groups within these areas act as stressors that amplify their susceptibility to climate shocks.

Climate-Induced Losses and Widening Income Gaps

Extreme weather frequency also has a profound impact on income gaps across rural communities, reducing prospects for holistic and inclusive growth and poverty reduction. Moreover, with more floods and droughts, widening income gaps become apparent. This eventually undermines the well-being of poor and female-headed households compared to other segments of the population.

When climate change reduces productivity, it also sabotages people's economic power to invest in future production and adaptation endeavors.  This undermines people's capability to invest in technologies, farm inputs, equipment, and labor. 

Barriers to Climate Adaptation and Psychological Impacts

Secondly, recurring vulnerability to climate-related events also deepens psychological effects. Correspondingly, people become less inclined to invest in their agricultural systems.  Eventually, people start prioritizing short-term investments over long-term gain. 

This shift in people's mindset is typically caused by inadequate access to resources and services, particularly insurance and credit services. Unavailability of these resources hampers the vulnerable groups from mitigating climate-induced economic losses and developing strategies to minimize inequality in climate change impacts. 

Conclusion

The relationship between extreme weather events and agriculture should serve as a wake-up call. Exposure to fluctuating weather conditions has drastically eroded the economic resilience of the most vulnerable groups. 

The solution lies in adopting rural adaptation strategies based on climate-smart agriculture and equitable access to reduce the impact on rural communities. A targeted approach is essential to build sustainable, inclusive prosperity in rural areas.