The UN defines Climate Change as the long-term shift in average in temperatures and weather patterns caused by natural and anthropogenic processes. There is a big attention on the shifts in climate patterns due to its threat to human wellbeing and health of the planet. The increasing number of climate extremes and natural disasters, such as wildfires, floods and droughts, has an immediate and direct impact on human health; therefore, there are a lot of adaptation actions in place to make people adjust to actual or expected climate and its effects.
Climate adaptation measures cannot be determined at global or even regional level, because these processes refer to a wide range of measures to reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts. Unfortunately, climate vulnerability is exacerbated in low-income communities and developing countries due to social inequalities (e.g., poverty, lack of access to education and healthcare, and political marginalisation) making it harder to adapt and recover from the effects of climate change. A clear case is the indigenous communities in the Amazon region affected by the increasing number of droughts and consequently frequent wildfires over the past decades. These climate-related natural disasters are likely to drive their displacement and migration. Another scenario is the climate change impact on crop production causing the rise of food prices and undoubtedly having a major impact on people already experiencing poverty and extreme poverty in developing countries, such as Brazil.
Monitoring climate from space is a powerful role from Earth observation satellites since they collect global and repetitive information on important climate components. Earth’s system models are also great resources to understand short- and long-term climate dynamics, which supports us to quantify the effects of climate change on social inequalities and evaluate the efficiency of proposed local actions to climate adaptation and mitigation.
Climate change is not just an environmental issue, but a social justice challenge; therefore, in this session we aim to discuss what it is known so far and what needs further research on the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable communities as well as to present more cases to evidence the limitations and challenges, mainly in Latin America. The session invites presentations that demonstrate the value of Earth System Science to tackle climate-related health inequalities in developing countries.