Developing policies to foster inclusive rural transformation processes requires better evidence on how climate change is affecting the livelihoods and economic behaviours of vulnerable rural people, including women, youths and people living in poverty. In particular, there is little comparative, multi-country and multi-region evidence to understand how exposure to weather shocks and climate change affects the drivers of rural transformation and adaptive actions across different segments of rural societies and in different agro-ecological contexts. 

This evidence is essential because, while climate risk and adaptive actions are context specific and require local solutions, global evidence is important for identifying shared vulnerabilities and priority actions for scaling up effective responses.

Related:

Next steps towards an inclusive Climate, Peace and Security agenda

As exclusion is a key driver of climate vulnerability, insecurity and conflict, climate action for peace can only happen in conjunction with a focus on inclusion. However, despite advancements in the Climate, Peace and Security agenda, marginalised groups are often left out of conversations. This practical note calls on climate, peace and security researchers, practitioners and policymakers to mainstream inclusion throughout all their areas of work.
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Numerical highlights from the report: 

•  In an average year, poor households lose 5 percent of their total income due to heat stress relative to better-off households, and 4.4 percent due to floods. 
•  Floods widen the income gap between poor and non-poor households in rural areas by approximately USD 21 billion a year, and heat stress by more than USD 20 billion a year. 
• Long-term temperature rises lead to an increase in poor households’ dependency on climate-sensitive agriculture relative to that of non-poor households. A 1° C increase in average long-term temperatures leads to a 53 percent increase in the farm incomes of poor households and a 33 percent decrease in their off-farm incomes, relative to non-poor households. 
• Every year, female-headed households experience income losses of 8 percent due to heat stress, and 3 percent due to floods, relative to male-headed households. 
• Heat stress widens the income gap between female-headed and maleheaded households by USD 37 billion a year, and floods by USD 16 billion a year.
•  A 1° C increase in long-term average temperatures is associated with a 34 percent reduction in the total incomes of female-headed households, relative to those of male-headed households. 
• In an average year, households headed by young people see their total incomes increase by 3 percent due to floods, and by 6 percent because of heat stress, relative to older households. 
• Heat stresses cause young rural households in low- and middle-income countries to increase their annual off-farm income by USD 47 billion relative to that of other households.

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This description was excerpted from fao.org