The damages from climate change have significant costs that are borne throughout the globe, disproportionately impacting economically disadvantaged and vulnerable populations.  Severe weather events, such as drought-induced forest fires, excessive flooding from hurricanes, and intense tornadoes, cause losses in the agricultural sector on which these populations are dependent, and they destroy buildings and property in low-lying and exposed areas, thereby resulting in losses for those who are least able to manage them. Weather-related economic damages from large disasters are increasing worldwide as the severe weather events become more frequent. Globally, disasters have more than tripled in number in the past 50 years.

In addition to severe weather, the effects of climate change on global healthcare have been overwhelmingly negative, including increased insect-borne infectious disease and increased heat-related illness, as well as higher incidence of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases caused by pollutants from fossil fuel combustion. As significant as the costs are to wealthy nations, the projected impacts on developing countries are even more severe, including large-scale health impacts, food insecurity, water insecurity, economic insecurity, and the loss of habitable land.

Land management and agricultural practices present a complex dilemma in relation to climate change, especially in the developing world, where the conflicting needs to preserve the ecosystem and to provide economic opportunities for the population are difficult to balance. The global food security issue alone puts expansion of agricultural lands in conflict with forest preservation. To balance the conflicting needs will require a coordinated set of measures including carbon price, reforestation programs, no-deforestation policies, as well as improved practices to enhance crop yields, reduce waste, and transition to less energy-intensive diets.

Today, we have only 4 billion hectares of forests of which only 1 billion hectares remain untouched by humans. These remaining billion hectares are the world’s remaining primary forests, e.g. the Amazon Rainforest in South America. There is an urgent need for forest protection as they not only absorb carbon dioxide and sequester it in their trunks, branches, leaves, and soil, but also house complex ecosystems that influence a forest’s ability to hold carbon, which potentially impact the feedback between the climate and the global carbon cycle.

Like primary forests, coastal wetlands – salt marshes, fresh- water marshes, mangrove swamps, forested swamps, and seagrass beds – are important for protecting coastal populations. They can hold five times as much carbon as tropical forests over the long term. As well, they are complex and important ecosystems. Threats to coastal wetlands include residential and infrastructure development, erosion, subsidence, and rising sea levels.

Developing countries require assistance in all of these regards. Developing the capacity to prepare and implement Climate Action plans which are sufficiently decentralized to address local issues are critical to building resiliency.