Reducing poverty, protecting livelihoods, and building assets in a changing climate
Social implications of climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean:
This book addresses climate change as the defining development challenge of our time: communities across Latin America and the Caribbean are already experiencing adverse consequences such as flooding and soil erosion, increasing heat and droughts, and shrinking glaciers' impact on water availability, which threaten local livelihoods with poverty, inequality, water access, health, and migration.
Using an innovative research methodology, the study finds quantitative evidence of large variations in impacts across regions, and asserts that successfully reducing social vulnerability to climate change and variability requires action and commitment at multiple levels. It offers key operational recommendations at the government, community, and household levels with particular emphasis placed on enhancing good governance and technical capacity in the public sector, building social capital in local communities, and protecting the asset base of poor households.