Different worlds: developed and developing countries
There are about 200 countries in the world. All countries are different from one another in geographical location, territory, natural environment, climate, population, economy, standard of living, history, and traditions. They have contributed in different levels to climate change and are all affected differently by it. They also differ in their capacity to cope with new climate impacts.
Countries are often divided into two large groups by their level of development: so-called ‘developed countries’ and ‘developing countries’.
Developed countries are relatively rich, with favourable living conditions and strong economies, in which industry, services and the financial sector play a major role. Their residents generally have social security, access to good health care and education, fulfilling work opportunities, and relatively high incomes that enable them to spend money on restaurants, shopping, or travel. The group of developed countries usually includes, but is not limited to, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, European countries, Japan, Singapore, and Israel. Some countries in Eastern Europe with so-called ‘transition economies’ represent a sub-group within the group of developed countries. The term ‘transition economies’ comes from these countries’ transition since the 1990s from centrally planned to market economies.
Developing countries as a group are at an earlier stage of their economic and social development compared to developed countries. Many of these countries are still heavily dependent on agriculture, commodities trading and mining. Large sections of the population have a lower standard of living, uneven access to health care, fewer social programmes, and fewer opportunities for education and employment.
The group of developing countries is very diverse. These include emerging economies (newly industrialized countries) such as China, India, South Korea, Türkiye, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, with rapid growth of industry and services. China and India are among the world’s ten largest economies today. Many things we use every day – clothes, shoes, dishes, furniture, appliances, and toys – are made in these countries, particularly in China. China leads the world in the volume of manufactured goods it produces every year, followed by the USA.
And then there are 46 countries considered to be the least developed in the world. They include small island states, landlocked mountainous countries, as well as countries with overcrowded territories and unfavourable climate conditions. These countries are very poor, their economies are weak, and their people and way of life are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts and natural disasters. Most least-developed countries are in Africa and Asia, and the poorest of them, according to the World Bank, are Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, and Somalia. Poverty in most of these countries is widespread, with most of the population living on less than two dollars a day. Many people are short of food, clean drinking water, hospitals, and schools. Families living in poverty try to have as many children as possible who will help their parents with housework, contribute to family income, and support them in old age. Poor sanitation, lack of food and clean water, and uneven access to health care mean that many children die before they can grow up, so having many children is a way of ensuring that at least some of them will survive. About 880 million people (12% of the world’s population) now live in the world’s poorest countries, which contribute less than 2% to the global economy.
Social inequality
In 2023, the world’s population crossed eight billion. The vast majority of the world’s people –
6.64 billion, or 83% of the total – live in developing countries and only 17% or 1.36 billion people (the so-called ‘golden billion’) live in developed countries.
Not surprisingly, the 17% of people living in rich countries consume the lion’s share of the world’s production, given their high incomes and lifestyle requirements. Operating industrial enterprises and creating the daily production for people in rich countries requires tremendous amounts of resources and energy. The largest energy consumers include Iceland, Norway, Canada, the USA, and wealthy nations in the Middle East such as Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The average person in these countries consumes as much as 100 times more than the average person in some of the poorest countries. For example, the average American needs 3.5 times more resources during their lifetime than the average inhabitant of the Earth, and the average American uses nine times more energy than the average Indian. So, the contribution of people living in developed countries to global greenhouse gas emissions (their ‘carbon footprint’) is much higher than that of people in developing countries, and they bear greater responsibility for the consequences of climate change.
The gap between the quality of life of the world’s rich and poor is huge. Average incomes in the richest 20 countries are 37 times higher than those in the poorest 20. So, for every $100 in income received by the average citizen of Europe or the USA, a resident of Nepal or Ethiopia receives only $2.50. The incomes of the 500 richest people in the world exceed the total income of the 416 million poorest people on the planet.
High birth rates in many developing countries mean that their rate of population growth is 3.5 times higher than that of developed countries. The populations of many poorest countries in Africa and Asia could double in less than 40 years. So, the numbers of the poorest people on the planet continue to increase.
The gap between the world’s rich and poor is huge. People in developed countries, who are just 17% of the world population, consume the greater part of the world’s production and more than 70% of all energy, while nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide are living on less than two dollars a day. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 770 million people lack access to clean drinking water, and 821 million people do not have the food they need to live an active and healthy life.
It would be a mistake to think that poverty is limited to the least developed countries. Rich countries also have backward regions and poor people. In the USA, for example, the Census Bureau put the number of poor people at 38 million in 2021, or about 12% of the total population. In Germany, nearly one in seven people, or 13.5 million, were living on or below the poverty line in 2022. Often the poorest people in developed countries are those who came there to work from developing countries, as well as people living in rural areas and declining industrial cities, where mines and factories are closing because they are unprofitable.
But the situations of a poor American and a poor African are quite different! The poverty line in the USA is an annual income of $22,000 for a family of four people, or about $15 per day per person.
That really is very little in view of the high
cost of essential goods in that country. But, to a poor person in the developing world, an American pauper, with their own accommodation, complete with toilet and bath, seems like Rockefeller.
Stark inequalities in living conditions – the unequal distribution of incomes and opportunities between the people of our planet – have grown to become one of the most pressing social problems in the world today. As noted in the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme in 2013: “Every person has the right to live a fulfilling life according to his or her own values and aspirations. No one should be doomed to a short life or a miserable one because he or she happens to be from the ‘wrong’ class or country, the ‘wrong’ ethnic group or race or the ‘wrong’ sex.” Unfortunately, climate change only intensifies social inequality and complicates the task of overcoming poverty. The recent COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these problems and, over two years, reversed some of the gains in social and economic development, poverty alleviation and reducing inequalities (UNDP Human Development Report 2021-2022).
Climate change makes social problems worse
We have already seen how every region and country in the world is experiencing the impact of climate change, but we have also seen how some of them – coastal, Arctic, mountainous or agricultural regions or countries – are more affected than others. This happens because the lifestyle and economy of the local population depends greatly on natural conditions and climate, so that any change leads to major problems for the economy and for society.
People in poor countries and regions depend mainly on agriculture for their livelihoods, so any drought, flood or hurricane can instantly deprive these people of their only source of income. Countries such as Bangladesh, Haiti, or Chad are not only among the first to feel the effects of climate change, but also lack the resources and capacities to address the potential risks.
Climate change in poor countries has especially major impacts on women, who are mainly responsible for raising children, looking after the sick and elderly, growing crops, and collecting water and fuel, and feeding their families. All these tasks are seriously affected by climate change.
In all regions, even in high-income countries, small children, the elderly, and people with disabilities may be at particular risk because their health is highly dependent on weather conditions.
CLIMATE INJUSTICE
means people who are least responsible for global warming may suffer the most because of it.
Climate migration
Climate change is causing tens of millions of people to migrate to escape the effects of storms, droughts, and floods. According to research by the Columbia Climate School of Columbia University, around 23 million people around the world moved away from their homes in 2017 due to sudden extreme weather events. Another 44 million or so were displaced due to ‘humanitarian crises’, likely exacerbated by the cascading effects of climate change. Their numbers may reach 200–250 million by 2050.
Areas threatened with mass migration include the Mekong and Ganges River deltas in South- East and South Asia. These are densely populated agricultural areas, where a predicted rise of two metres in water level in these rivers will lead to flooding of large areas of arable land. People who work in these fields will be forced to seek new places to live and work.
Frequent droughts or floods, with particularly serious consequences for agriculture, will force many people in rural areas to move to cities in search of work. Such migration leads to the creation of whole neighbourhoods of poor migrants – slum areas with poor basic services and a high crime rate.
An increasing number of people from the Caribbean islands are leaving their homes due to more frequent tropical storms and tornadoes as these countries have only limited capacities to cope with tougher climate conditions.
Figure 2.10.1 Slums in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Figure 2.10.2 A camp of migrants who were forced to leave their homes due to a severe drought (Somalia, 2011)
Figure 2.10.3 The aftermath of Hurricane Haiyan (The Philippines, 2013)
Australia and New Zealand have received climate migrants from the island states of Oceania. Islands in the Tuvalu and Kiribati Archipelagos, located not far from Australia, are gradually being submerged by rising water levels in the ocean. Environmentalists in Australia are pressing their government to allocate a special quota for these climate refugees. Similarly, the Government of the Maldives has agreed with Sri Lanka (also an island nation) on resettlement of its people if there is imminent danger of this island chain disappearing under the sea.
The island nation of Kiribati consists mainly of coral islands, which are only two metres above sea level on average, so that rising sea levels could inundate them within the next 50 years. In 2012, the government of the islands decided to buy land in the Republic of Fiji, where the inhabitants of islands, which may be lost to the sea, can be resettled.
New conflicts
Climate change can cause serious conflicts between people in different regions, particularly over land rights, water scarcity and climate migration, with widespread social consequences (Fig. 2.10.4).
Regions marked in red are particularly at risk of crises related to climate change. These are regions threatened by prolonged droughts, water shortages, rising sea levels, soil salinity and crop failures, lack of access to energy and other factors that could provoke political and social crises, and increase migration flows.
Figure 2.10.4 Areas of potential crises related to climate change
International cooperation for social assistance
Special programmes of assistance for the most vulnerable populations are needed to reduce the social risks arising from climate change. These may include: training and professional reorientation for people in rural areas, giving them alternative livelihoods to agriculture; projects to resettle the inhabitants of threatened regions; the creation of jobs in poor areas; research to develop more drought-resistant crop varieties; and setting up early warning systems for natural disasters. But all these measures require money that poor countries and poor people do not have.
There are various funds and financial instruments to help developing countries overcome social problems associated with the adverse effects of climate change. The main donors are the governments of developed countries, large companies, and international organizations, primarily the United Nations.
QUESTIONS
1
How are developed countries different from developing countries?
2
Do most of the people in the world live in developed or developing countries?
3
Which countries are the most vulnerable to climate change? Why?
4
Why do the consequences of climate change have the greatest impacts on the world’s poor?
What social problems does climate change make worse?
5
Animals and plants cannot adapt to rapid changes in climate, but how about people?
TASKS
1
On a map of the world, underline the top 20 countries in terms of economic development and colour them using a green crayon. On the same map underline the 20 countries that are the top emitters of greenhouse gas emissions (data can be found in Wikipedia) and colour them red.
Is there a lot of overlap? How many of the leading countries of the world are now a ‘dirty brown’, indicating that they cause the most harm to the Earth’s climate?
Explain why these countries are the most to blame for ongoing climate change.
2
Imagine that you are working for an international fund that allocates money for projects to combat the consequences of climate change. What projects to help poor countries would you finance first and foremost?
