Chapter 12: Central and South America
Executive Summary
Vulnerability and observed impacts:
The impacts of climate change are not of equal scope for men and women (high confidence). Women, particularly the poorest, are more vulnerable and are impacted in greater proportion. Often they have less capacity to adapt, further widening structural gender gaps (high confidence). {12.3.7.3, 12.5.2.4, 12.5.2.5, 12.5.7.3, 12.5.8.1, 12.5.8.3, 12.5.8.4}
12.1 Introduction
12.1.1 Central and South America Region
Central and South America (CSA) is a highly diverse region, both culturally and biologically. It has one of the highest levels of biodiversity on the planet (Hoorn et al., 2010; Zador et al., 2015; IPBES, 2018a) (Cross-Chapter Paper [CCP] 1: Biodiversity Hotspots) and a wealth of cultural diversity resulting from more than 800 Indigenous Peoples who share the territory with European and African descendants and more recent Asian migrants (CEPAL, 2014). Moreover, it is one of the most urbanised regions in the world, with some of the most populated metropolitan areas (UNDESA, 2019). Several countries in the region have experienced sustained economic growth in recent decades, making important advances in reducing poverty in the area. Yet it is a region of substantial social inequality including the highest inequality in land tenure, where a large percentage of the population remains below the poverty line, unequally distributed between rural and urban areas and along aspects like gender and race; these groups are highly vulnerable to climate change and natural extreme events that frequently affect the region (high confidence) (ECLAC, 2019b; Busso and Messina, 2020; Poveda et al., 2020).
12.3 Hazards, Exposure, Vulnerabilities and Impacts
12.3.1 Central America Sub-region
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12.3.1.3 Vulnerability
Climate change is exacerbating socioeconomic vulnerability in CA, a region with high levels of socioeconomic, ethnic and gender inequality, high rates of child and maternal mortality and morbidity, high levels of malnutrition and inadequate access to food and drinking water (ECLAC et al., 2015). Disasters from adverse natural events exacerbate CA’s economic vulnerability, accounting for substantial human and economic losses (UNISDR and CEPREDENAC, 2014). Vulnerability in most sectors is considered high or very high (high confidence) (Figure 12.7).
12.3.7.3 Vulnerability
Chile has experienced accelerated economic growth, which has reduced poverty; however, important geographical, economic and educational inequalities remain (Repetto, 2016). The Chilean healthcare system has become more equitable and responsive to the population’s needs (e.g., the Bono AUGE healthcare reform programme); however, the high relative inequalities in terms of income (OECD, 2018), education level and rural–urban factors are determinants of quality of care, health system barriers and differential access to healthcare (high confidence) (Frenz et al., 2014). Exposure and vulnerability to psychosocial risks in SWS show significant inequalities in times of disasters such as earthquakes according to socioeconomic, geographic and gender factors (high confidence) (Labra, 2002; Vitriol et al., 2014; Quijada et al., 2018), which are increased by the absence of local planning and drills and the lack of coordination (Vitriol et al., 2014). Indigenous Peoples have the highest levels of vulnerability in Chile in terms of income, basic needs and access to services to climate change (low confidence) (Parraguez-Vergara et al., 2016).
12.5 Adaptation
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12.5.2 Ocean and Coastal Ecosystems and Their Services
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12.5.2.3 National Climate Change Commitments for Ocean and Coasts
Current goals in national and sectoral adaptation plans attempt to promote research and monitoring (e.g., new research actions, modelling, knowledge management), the development of new legislative tools and policies (e.g., inter-institutional and territorial coordination, improvement of public policies), the conservation of ocean and coastal ecosystems and their biodiversity (e.g., creation of new MPAs, protection tools), the management of climate risks (e.g., warning systems), the management of productive activities (e.g., diversification of resources), the promotion of the construction of new infrastructure and technology (e.g., grey-green infrastructure [GGI]), the creation of new financial tools (e.g., types of insurance), improved the capacity building (e.g., education, awareness), water and residue management (e.g., sewage and freshwater availability), social inclusion (e.g., strategies to support vulnerable sectors, gender inclusion) and the incorporation of traditional practices (e.g., restoring traditional practices including Indigenous knowledge [IK]). However, the amount and type of adaptation goals differ enormously from country to country (Figure 12.12).
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12.5.7 Poverty, Livelihood and Sustainable Development
Inequality is growing, a CSA structural characteristic; the Gini index average for Latin American countries (including Mexico) decreased to 0.466 in 2017, where 1% of the richest got 22 times more income than 10% of the poorest (ECLAC, 2019b; Busso and Messina, 2020), but in 2018, 29.6% of Latin American populations were poor (which increased to 182 million) and 10.2% were living in extreme poverty; in 2018 (increased to 63 million) (ECLAC, 2019b) and in 2020, due to the COVID crisis, the Gini coefficient projection of increases range from 1.1% to 7.8% (ECLAC and PAHO, 2020), with poverty increasing to 33.7% (209 millions) and extreme poverty to 12.5% (78 millions) (ECLAC and PAHO, 2020; ECLAC, 2021). Those poverty and extreme poverty rates are higher among children, young people, women, Indigenous Peoples (Reckien et al., 2017; Busso and Messina, 2020), migrants (Dodman et al., 2019) and rural populations. Climate change has differential impacts, and even within a household there may be important differences in relation to age, gender, health and disability; these factors may intersect with one another (high confidence) (Reckien et al., 2017; Busso and Messina, 2020).
12.5.7.3 Adaptation Options
There is also increasing evidence of human mobility associated with climate change and disaster risk (IOM, 2021) and the adoption of sustainable tourism, diversification of livelihood strategies, climate forecasts, appropriate construction techniques, neighbourhood layout, integral urban upgrading initiatives, territorial and urban planning, regulatory frameworks, water harvesting and NbS (Stein and Moser, 2014; Hardoy and Mastrangelo, 2016; Almeida et al., 2018; Barbier and Hochard, 2018a; Desmaison et al., 2018; Satterthwaite et al., 2018, 2020; Villafuerte et al., 2018; Hidalgo, 2020). Mostly, socioeconomical and sociopolitical factors show that safety and continuity measures are critical enablers of adaptation.
At the municipal level, a study in CA highlighted that adaptive capacity in rural areas is associated with the satisfaction of basic needs (safe drinking water, school, quality dwelling, gender parity index), access to resources for innovation and action (road density, economically active population with non-agricultural employment and rural demographic dependency ratio) and access to credit and technical support (Bouroncle et al., 2017).
Low participation of women in income-earning opportunities contrasts with their role in unpaid activities (ECLAC, 2019b). Despite the progress that has been made, gender differences in labour markets remain an unjustifiable form of inequality (OIT, 2019), and women easily fall back on the informal labour market during crisis situations, such as those generated by climate events (Collodi et al., 2020).
12.5.8 Cross-cutting Issues in the Human Dimension
12.5.8.1 Public Policies, Social Movements and Participation
Because there are asymmetries among populations regarding the vulnerability and benefits of adaptation, along the lines of gender, age, socioeconomic conditions and ethnicity, it has been noticed that adaptation policies and programmes must be adequate to diverse conditions and actors (very high confidence) (Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014; Walshe and Argumedo, 2016; Baucom and Omelsky, 2017; Harvey et al., 2018).
12.5.8.2 Perceptions
Perceptions tend to be different in rural and urban areas (Sherman et al., 2015). In rural areas, it largely relates to temperature rise and changes in rainfall patterns, changes in agriculture (pests, calendars), biodiversity loss, solar radiation or changes in the oceans, and their impacts are sometimes related or even more attributed to socioeconomic and environmental drivers, as well as to negative financial outcomes (high confidence) (Infante and Infante, 2013; Postigo, 2014; Jacobi et al., 2015; Barrucand et al., 2017; Harvey et al., 2018; Martins and Gasalla, 2018; Meldrum et al., 2018; Córdoba Vargas et al., 2019; Leroy, 2019; Viguera et al., 2019; Gutierrez et al., 2020; Iniguez-Gallardo et al., 2020; Lambert and Eise, 2020). In such places as Amazonia, perception increases with age (Funatsu et al., 2019). In Mediterranean Chile, younger, more educated producers and those who own their land tend to have clearer perceptions than older, less educated or tenant farmers, but they do not have a clear perception or how it may affect their yields and farming operation (Roco et al., 2015). In some dry and humid Ecuadorian montane forests, peasantss perceptions are in line with the scientific data, but they have a lot of difficulties to predict the changes and believe that they may not be prepared and can only be reactive (HerradorValencia and Paredes, 2016). In an Andean community, perceptions of climate change are homogeneous and do not vary according to gender, age or ethnicity (Cáceres-Arteaga et al., 2020). Among representatives of five municipalities of Lima, it was found that climate change is not well understood and residents have trouble distinguishing it from other environmental issues (Siña et al., 2016). In an Amazonian region, farmers provided a more accurate description than regional institutions of how it affects the local livelihood system (Altea, 2020). In Cuenca Auqui peasants attribute recently experienced challenges in agricultural production mainly to perceived changes in precipitation patterns, but statistical analyses of daily precipitation records at nearby stations do not corroborate those perceived changes (Gurgiser et al., 2016).
12.5.8.3 Gender and Intersectionality
There is ample empirical evidence that the impacts of climate change are not of equal scope for men and women. Women, particularly the poorest, are more vulnerable and are impacted in greater proportion. Often, for several economic and social reasons, women have less capacity to adapt, further widening structural gender gaps (high confidence) (Box 7.4; Arana Zegarra, 2017; Casas Varez, 2017; Segnestam, 2017; Acosta et al., 2019; Aldunce Ide et al., 2020; Olivera et al., 2021; Silva Rodríguez de San Miguel et al., 2021). Gender equity is deemed to be central to discussions on climate-change adaptation policies. In issues such as drinking water, energy, disasters, impacts on health and agriculture and capacity to migrate, women (poor women in particular) are affected in greater proportion, further widening structural gender gaps. In a rural community vulnerable to drought, short-term coping was more common among the women, especially among female heads of household, while adaptive actions were more common among the men; there are gendered inequalities in access to and control over different forms of capital that lead to a genderdifferentiated capacity to adapt, where men are better able to adapt and women experience a downward spiral in their capacity to adapt and increasing vulnerability to drought (Segnestam, 2017).
However, women are not always the more vulnerable group. While in a broad sense climate-change impacts women more severely, there are situations where they have reacted, adapted better to or been more resilient. Grassroots women self-help groups can be active agents of change for their communities, designing and delivering genderresponsive adaptation solutions (Huairou Commission, 2019). Some studies suggest that women establish friendlier relationships with the environment and towards natural resources; studies on masculinity and environment confirm this tendency (Brough et al., 2016). In a multicountry study, some female-headed households tend to be slightly less vulnerable and more resilient than male-headed households, though some exceptions were found among sub-groups (Andersen et al., 2017). In Chile, women are more likely to modernise irrigation and infrastructure, and gender appears to be an important element in drought adaptation (Roco et al., 2016). A change to agroecological practices has improved gender equality and adaptive capacity to climate change (Cáceres-Arteaga et al., 2020).
Recent studies emphasise that a gender approach to social inequalities ought to move beyond just looking at men and women as experiencing impacts in a differentiated manner; rather, an intersectional analysis illuminates how different individuals and groups relate differently to climate change due to their situatedness in power structures based on context-specific and dynamic social categorisations (high confidence) (Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014; Djoudi et al., 2016; Thompson-Hall et al., 2016; Olivera et al., 2021). Thus, the relationship between gender and adaptation demands an analytical framework that connects environmental problems with social inequalities in a complex way (Godfrey, 2012). An intersectional approach helps to better capture the diversity of adaptive strategies that men and women adopt vis-àvis climate change. Particular constellations of race, gender, class, age or nationality reveal more complex realities (high confidence).
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12.7 Knowledge Gaps
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12.7.2 Knowledge Gaps by Sector
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12.7.2.8 Cross-Cutting Issues in the Human Dimension
While studies on climate-change gender-differentiated impacts have grown over the past 10 years in CSA, studies on how gender intersects with other dimensions such as race, ethnicity, age or rural/ urban setting are still needed. This will help to further understand how gender inequalities are connected to broader power structures in society and, thus, to produce evidence on the importance of an intersectional approach to climate change.
