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	Climate change impact on food will go beyond production by Tonya Rawe CARE International   A study launched last week in the Lancet has found that as many as 529,000 people may die as a result of changes in diet, weight, and health due to climate change impacts on food production. This study is further evidence that the impacts of climate change are real, they are dire, and the need to act is urgent.   Much of the research on climate change and agriculture to date has examined the impacts of climate change on food production: how much food will be available. What has not been adequately explored – and what this study is a first and critical step forward in examining – is how those climate-induced impacts on food production will in turn affect nutrition and health.   It begins to ask what kind of food will be available, what people will consume, and what influence that will have.   The study is a reflection of the myriad and complex ways in which climate change will impact hunger and malnutrition (including lack of food, vitamins and minerals, as well as obesity). In its 2014 assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made clear that climate change will impact all aspects of food security.   Food security means food is available, but it also includes different people’s access to food, how food is used, and the stability of food supplies and prices.   It is not enough to have “more food” to end hunger and malnutrition in the face of climate change. In examining how much food is available, it is critical to look at what kind of food is available.   A diverse diet is critical for health. Malnutrition in pregnant women leads to poor health and nutritional status in newborns. Malnutrition in young children can permanently impair their development, negatively impacting their learning and earning potential and creating a vicious intergenerational cycle of poverty. Nutrition matters.   This latest study does dig into climate change impacts on different kinds of foods, rather than focusing on impacts on staple crops. However, the authors recognize that more research in this regard is needed and that among factors not included in their study is the effect of climate change on the nutritional value of foods.   Early research in this area has shown that climate change may have negative consequences on the protein and nutrient content of grains and legumes. More research here is also vital.   Yet even “more nutritious food” will not be enough. We must also ask who has access to food. Not everyone can afford enough food – or nutritious food. And access isn’t only about affordability. Social factors – gender, social group – also matter.   The Lancet commentary acknowledges that national-level data can mask social or economic variations within a country. We know from our work at CARE that variations exist not only within countries but within communities and even within households. In too many poor households around the world, women are often the last to eat, after men and children.   So the impact of climate change on food isn’t just a matter of calories. It’s a question of nutrition – the kinds of food available and consumed; and it’s about economic and social equality – ensuring everyone has equal access to enough nutritious food.   These complex dynamics may be harder to measure but are arguably mission-critical for identifying solutions to end hunger and malnutrition in the face of climate change. Simply producing more food will not solve the crisis.   A final point: while the study looks at projections that seem decades away, and researchers flag the value of looking even further into the future, we must act now. We already live in a world with almost 800 million chronically hungry people and over 160 million children whose development has been permanently impaired by malnutrition.   Second, we need to build health and food systems that support everyone’s ability to access enough nutritious food and quality health services.   And lastly, we cannot lose sight of the fundamental challenge: without urgent, ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we cannot meet the Paris Agreement goal to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and we will not solve the climate crisis nor end hunger and malnutrition.   This new study sheds more light on the impacts of climate change around the world. They are real and everywhere. They may differ among regions and within countries, communities and households.   But the fact remains: no country is immune from the environmental, social and health ripple effects of climate change. The study raises a red flag for the kind of world in which we can expect to live – a fundamentally altered world. That red flag must be a clarion call to act now.   * Tonya Rawe is a senior advisor for policy and research on food and nutrition security with CARE International. Access the Lancet report via the link below. Visit the related web page
	Why the majority of the world’s poor are women by Oxfam International   Hoan works at the Tinh Loi Garment Factory, in North Vietnam, where she works on average 62 hours each week, earning around $1 an hour, packaging t-shirts and shirts for global export.   Tabitha Mwikali, 36, is a domestic worker. She lives in Mukuru, one of Nairobi’s biggest informal settlements. She is from Matuu in south eastern Kenya, where she has sent her children to live as she can’t afford to feed them or send them to school on her weekly wage of 200 - 250 shillings (approx. $2.50).   Gender inequality is one of the oldest and most pervasive forms of inequality in the world. It denies women their voices, devalues their work and make women’s position unequal to men’s, from the household to the national and global levels.   Despite some important progress to change this in recent years, in no country have women achieved economic equality with men, and women are still more likely than men to live in poverty.   Lower-paid, unpaid, undervalued: gender inequality in work   Low wages. Across the world, women are in the lowest-paid work. Globally, they earn 23 percent less than men and at the current rate of progress, it will take 170 years to close the gap. 700 million fewer women than men are in paid work.   Lack of decent work. 75 percent of women in developing regions are in the informal economy - where they are less likely to have employment contracts, legal rights or social protection, and are often not paid enough to escape poverty. 600 million are in the most insecure and precarious forms of work.   Unpaid care work. Women do at least twice as much unpaid care work, such as childcare and housework, as men – sometimes 10 times as much, often on top of their paid work.   The global value of this work each year is estimated at $10 trillion – which is equivalent to one-eighth of the world’s entire GDP.   Longer work days.   Women work longer days than men when paid and unpaid work is counted together. That means globally, a young woman today will work on average the equivalent of four years more than a man over her lifetime.   Increasing women''s economic equality would reduce poverty for everyone   Gender inequality in the economy costs women in developing countries $9 trillion a year – a sum which would not only give new spending power to women and benefit their families and communities, but would also provide a massive boost to the economy as a whole.   Countries with higher levels of gender equality tend to have higher income levels, and evidence from a number of regions and countries shows closing the gap leads to reduction in poverty.   In Latin America for instance, an increase in the number of women in paid work between 2000 and 2010 accounted for around 30 percent of the overall reduction in poverty and income inequality.   Supporting women to have access to quality and decent work and improve their livelihoods is therefore vital for fulfilling women’s rights, reducing poverty and attaining broader development goals.   Women’s economic empowerment is a key part of achieving this. We need a human economy that works for women and men alike, and for everyone, not just a few. Visit the related web page
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