Lesson Plan: Poverty and Climate: An Inextricable Link

Here is a step-by-step guide to using this lesson plan in the classroom/laboratory. We have suggested these steps as a possible plan of action. You may customize the lesson plan according to your preferences and requirements.

Step 1: Topic introduction and discussion (Go to the Reading)

Use this chapter reading, ‘Chapter VII: Impact of Climate Change on POVERTY’ from a teachers’ guidebook on climate change, ‘Integrating Climate Change Issues in Southeast Asian Schools’ by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) to introduce to your class the topic of poverty and to discuss various aspects of it through a close reading of the text.

1. Use the reading to first define poverty and to explain that the definition of ‘poverty’ is not the same for all nations and that it is based on the country’s level of economic progress.
2. Explain the causes of poverty and therefore, parameters like access to food, water, shelter, healthcare, infrastructure and education that define the state of well-being or poverty of a nation’s population.
3. Discuss, using the text, the causes for varying proportions of poor people in different nations with emphasis on the Southeast Asian countries.
4. Explain terms like ‘absolute or extreme poverty’ and ‘poverty trap’ to describe the various degrees of poverty across the social strata within a society.
5. Use the text to discuss how poverty disproportionately affects women, children and the elderly or infirm, making them more vulnerable to the impacts of poverty.
6. Using figure 7.2, pg. 258, explain what the poverty cycle is and its implications across generations.
7. Further, discuss the relationship between poverty and climate change. Explain how they are interconnected and using figure 7.1, pg 255, explain the impacts of climate change on poverty. Emphasize how climate change exacerbates poverty and therefore, the vulnerabilities of the poor. Use the reading to comment on how poverty in turn adversely affects climate change.
8. Using the text, define and discuss climate adaptation, climate mitigation, disaster management, and resilience building measures to deal with climate change.
9. Identify the basic causes of poverty- lack of income, access and power- and describe ways in which these problems can be addressed by countries.
10. Finally, stress on the need for government policies to alleviate poverty and to tackle climate change, the two major challenges for sustainable global development.

Step 2 : Explore the topic further (Go to the Reading)

Use this feature story, ‘Rapid, Climate-Informed Development Needed to Keep Climate Change from Pushing More than 100 Million People into Poverty by 2030’, by the World Bank to talk about the findings of a comprehensive report published by them, ‘Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty’. The link to the full report can be found in the additional resources section. This feature story is available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian.

1. Play the video, ‘Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty’, by the World Bank Group to highlight the need for policies to manage the effects of climate change in order to protect the poor, that are worse affected by it.
2. Read the text to emphasize to your students that measures taken to eradicate global poverty are thwarted by climate related factors and therefore, there is a need to address climate change in conjunction with poverty alleviating development work.
3. Use the infographic, ‘Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty’, to walk your students through the impacts of climate change on poor people, the implications of inaction on climate change related factors for global poverty and the ways to address both issues of poverty and climate change through ‘climate smart development’.

Use the tools and the concepts learned so far to discuss and determine answers to the following questions:

1. Define poverty and briefly explain its causes.
2. What is the ‘vicious circle of poverty’? How can the poverty cycle be broken?
3. ‘It is the poor who are affected most by climate change’. Do you agree? Give reasons in support of your answer.
4. Explain the impact of climate change on poor women and children.
5. How are the struggles against poverty and climate change interlinked?
6. What policies and actions are needed to mitigate climate change as well as reduce poverty?

The tools in this lesson plan will enable students to:

1. identify ‘Poverty’ and ‘Climate Change’ as the two most important challenges for sustainable global development.
2. discuss the causes of poverty and understand the ‘Poverty Trap’ or ‘Poverty Cycle’.
3. learn how poverty and climate change are related and understand how climate change has a more severe impact on poor communities.
4. distinguish the ways in which men, women and children are differently affected by poverty and climate change.
5. appreciate the need for climate change adaptation and mitigation policies.