Gina Castillo is the Agriculture Program Manager at Oxfam America.

Most of us think that accidents are unforeseeable and not preventable. But that is not the case when it comes to why people who are poor are hit again and again by events that make it difficult for them to escape poverty.

Today Oxfam released a new report, No Accident: Resilience and the Inequality of Risk. The report shows that disaster risk is being dumped on to millions of people living in poverty because of climate change and because of unfair practices.

Take weather-related events as an example. Due to urbanization and climate change, there are increasingly more people living in places that are susceptible to disasters. Since 1970 the number of people exposed to floods and cyclones has doubled. Those are the “big shocks”—the ones that get media attention and galvanize donors and governments into action, as was certainly the case when Haiti suffered its devastating earthquake in January 2010. Yet, there are also “small shocks” such as illness, death, or a harvest failure, that can push a family that is just hanging on to destitution.

Consider this figure below, which shows how one family in Port-au-Prince, Haiti coped in the year after the 2010 earthquake, which sadly killed two of their youngest boys. The father lost his job and the family was heavily reliant friends and neighbors who provided them with most of their meals until mid-May, as well as emergency-related grants and services. After this, they were forced to sell their livestock. An Oxfam grant allowed them to pay off their debts and to start a small business, but their household income still dropped by 88 per cent. Unfortunately, the shocks continued. The family invested in a market garden, which was later destroyed by Hurricane Tomas in October 2010. They also bought food to sell, but some of this was looted during election violence in November 2010.

Figure 1: One family’s experience after the 2010 Haiti earthquake

We highlight this family’s story because it is not atypical.  People work hard to get out of poverty, as studies have shown.

So why is it so difficult for people to get ahead? In the aid world, we talk often of vulnerability. But we cannot talk about vulnerability as a random twist of fate. It’s about politics, power, and inequality. As a result, risk is dumped on poor countries and their inhabitants, asis certainly the case for climate change. 50% of carbon emissions are generated by 11% of people, the consequences of which are left to poor countries and the most vulnerable are the hardest hit. Women often face higher risks because of gender discrimination and cultural norms, yet shoulder the burden of managing families. They have fewer opportunities economically, resulting in lower income and fewer options when it comes to managing risk.

Why does this happen? Our research showed that while measuring vulnerability is difficult, countries with more vulnerable populations also tend to be those with greater income inequality. Governments need to tackle inequality and ensure that risk is better shared across society. Thankfully there is increasing awareness that excessive inequality is corrosive to growth.

Aid cannot fix inequality and disproportionate risk. Governments can. Targeted action to support society’s most vulnerable (basic services such as education health, and access to decision-making) is needed to even out inequalities, reduce risk, and build resilience.

Because some accidents are preventable.

David Waskow is Oxfam America’s climate change program director.

When I read headlines like this one last week, “Vietnam Coffee Harvest May Drop 30% on Drought,” I’m left with the feeling that the tablecloth is being pulled out from under the dishes on the table.

Dry, cracked earth seen at Dire Dime, Ethiopia. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

And it’s climate change that is doing the pulling.

Food production is already being pummeled globally by increasingly-severe climate events and other climate impacts, with more on the way. Small-scale farmers in developing countries are bearing the brunt of the damage – all too often, the crops they depend on for their lives and livelihoods are directly in harm’s way.

So when Oxfam began work on our new Behind the Brands initiative and a Scorecard assessing the policies of the ten largest food and beverage companies on a range of issues that are vital for small-scale farmers, climate change was right in the mix.

We examined company policies on climate change in two ways, looking at how they’re dealing with both the causes and the consequences of global warming.  First, we wanted to know whether these major companies are working to address climate change risks in their supply chains and if they are working to support the resilience of small-scale farmers in the face of impacts such as water scarcity and storms.  Second, we wanted to know whether the companies are working to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, especially from agricultural sources.   (Much of our scoring is based on company reporting based on the CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) reporting format.)

What we discovered surprised us.  Just because a company did well in one area – building climate resilience or reducing emissions –didn’t mean it did well in the other.  Unilever, which scored 74% on the scorecard elements about emissions, scored only 30% in terms of its policies about climate risks and building the resilience of small-scale farmers.  The company needs to bring its focus on resilience up to its focus on emissions, which itself can still improve.  Unilever’s failure to address  resilience represents the overall dismal state of affairs when it comes to the ten companies’ engagement on climate risks and the impacts that small-scale farmers face. The average company score on this was 25%.

One company, Nestle, did quite well with its policies on climate resilience.  Nestle scored 83% on the resilience elements of the scorecard, largely because the company’s CDP reports and other policies highlight the importance of addressing climate impacts such as water shortages and volatile weather patterns.  Sadly, however, the company didn’t do so well when it comes to emissions.  Nestle has only average policies on emissions, with a score of 44%, and a below-average score at 23% for its policies specifically on agricultural sources of emissions.

But, frankly, what surprised and disappointed us the most was that some companies had weak policies on climate change across the board.  Associated British Foods, General Mills, and Kellogg’s each scored 3%, 9%, and 12%, respectively, on climate resilience.  And the same three companies scored 15%, 0%, and 8%, respectively, when it comes to those companies’ policies on emissions from agricultural sources.  These companies are the real laggards on addressing the causes and consequences of climate change in their supply chains.

They need to realize that the table cloth is being swiftly pulled out from under them and that our food and drinks—and the lives of the poorest around the world—will surely come crashing down as a result.

***

This post by David Waskow is part of a Behind the Brands blog series on Politics of Poverty that examines the seven issues relating to poverty and big food companies’ supply chains. Read other posts on land, women, farmers, transparency, water, and workers!

Paul O’Brien is the Vice President for Policy and Campaigns at Oxfam America.

On a Friday afternoon in 2004, I was sitting on a Hill looking out over downtown Kabul.  The city was blanketed in smog with mountains rising in the backdrop.

Smog over Kabul. Photo courtesy of the Geo-Images Project http://bit.ly/VKijKQ

“Beautiful,” my Afghan friend said.

“Except for the smog,” I said.  “Our daughters are down there breathing that air.”

“The smog is beautiful too,” he said, “and they will survive. Three years ago, there were no cars in Kabul.  Today, we have your problem—too many cars.  It’s a better problem to have.”

Climate change activism has a challenge.  How do we tell a new story that works globally in our multi-polar, hungry world?

I just spent a few days thinking about this very question at a Climate Gathering in Ireland.  While the discussion critically lacked southern voices, it was a still a useful gathering of North American and European thinkers, activists, and artists trying to find new ways to mobilize a new conversation on climate.

I was unnerved when the meeting started by showing us the “darkening” room, or the place we were to go to voice frustrations.  It was well populated in the beginning sessions.  Early on I sensed that our perpetual brinkmanship may be politically bankrupt in the North.  The drumbeats of “failed consciousness” and “impending catastrophe” have become white noise for too many people.  We convince ourselves that words like “warming” and “change” will terrify millions, when we know in our hearts that our Southern allies want change more than anything.  We need a new story that comes not from failure, but the possibility of victory, not stasis but movement.

We played around with this notion; we are in a new age of enlightenment.  Once again in human history, our thinkers, activists, artists and benefactors—those guiding our private conversations—are outpacing our politicians and public conversations.  Art, technology, economics, and science are transforming not just what we can have, but what we want, or what “the good life” means.  For the first time ever, “global consciousness”—a key to solving uniquely global problems—is possible.

It’s a matter of time before politicians seek to line up incentives so that our planet wins from our innovation and endeavor.  Regulation will become our friend, and time is not our enemy.  What was unthinkable in the United States 10 years ago—a President mocking climate deniers, a global social media discussion on this issue, and locally-grown organic food in most communities, the simple life commercialized—is already happening.  Changing weather patterns don’t just insist on our attention, they are getting it and we are acting.

Of course, none of this is happening quickly enough or deeply enough for millions of people facing true crises today of hunger, forced migration, and loss of livelihoods.  Their stories can and must be told everywhere.  But if modern movement building requires more agency from Southern and Northern activists, we need more ways to mobilize people than the hope of individual outrage at our collective failure.

If climate change activism needs to become more ecumenical to be popular, it may need a more promiscuous sensibility.  It cannot always be so needy and judgmental.  Of course we must harness human “compassion,” but let’s not forget “force” and “laughter.”  Why not embrace “competition” as well as “collaboration”? How about “playfulness” as well as “responsibility”?  More people want to engage, but they don’t all want to weave every strand of their life together to do something good.  Many would engage in mindless random acts of political power if they knew something useful would happen as a consequence.  They may be responsible for the problem and may need to take responsibility, but they don’t want to be reminded of it all the time.

As we searched for an enlightenment story that cut across all our disciplines, the most resilient one was “home.”  I liked it. It works locally (the hearth), nationally (homeland) and globally (planet).  It evokes responsibility and protection.  It brings forth a different kind of voice and tone in the conversation.

Smog over Kabul. Photo courtesy Building Markets blog http://bit.ly/omDieg

When we talked of home, those who liked the big stage (most often men) shut up, while quieter voices (often women) spoke up and out.

I worry though that a story of home won’t bring in different voices, so much as convince the converted to stay the course. And that’s not enough.  Climate change needs stories of adventure and victory too—all sorts of heroes.

I was able to bring my daughter home from Kabul.  My friend and his daughter still live in a kerosene-heated home, darkening with dirty diesel every day.  They want life to keep changing more, not less.  Our enlightenment, our story of home, has to work for us both.

A few weeks before Oxfam’s GROW Campaign launched in 2011, I went up to New York with our president Ray Offenheiser and head of our policy (and lead Poindexter) Gawain Kripke to meet with a handful of journalists. We wanted to give them a sneak peek at what we had planned.

One of our first stops was to sit down with Sandy Keenan, Environment Editor at the New York Times, and two key reporters on the Environment Desk: Elisabeth Rosenthal and Justin Gillis. We had a long conversation about the issues of GROW and the emerging trends that we were seeing around the world.

Cracked, dry earth outside Magartu Baleha's home near East Shewa, Ethiopia. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

They asked difficult questions, probed the soft spots of our research, and challenged us to back up our point of view with credible evidence. It was a good conversation, one clearly grounded in knowledge and experience with the immense and complex challenges that come with trying to feed a growing population without breaking the planet. This is not always the experience one has when talking to reporters. In fact it was utterly unique. No other outlet had this depth of knowledge actually backed up by the resources and mandate to reach a mainstream audience.

So it is with great disappointment that I read today that the “paper of record” is dismantling its environment desk, reassigning the reporters and editors to other beats. The change, they say, is not prompted by budgetary pressures but what Inside Climate News calls “the shifting interdisciplinary landscape of news reporting.”

Times managing editor for news operations told ICN that environmental stories are, “partly business, economic, national or local, among other subjects. They are more complex. We need to have people working on the different desks that can cover different parts of the story.”

That’s all well and good but it is hard to see this move as anything but an unmitigated disaster for people who care about how the challenges facing our environment impact our lives. The Times environmental coverage is heads and shoulders above what any other mainstream outlet in the US is offering. It is literally without comparison in its quality and quantity. Certainly there are good reporters outside the confines of the Times. Most other outlets have offered shrinking coverage of the political and policy decisions that impact our planet. The Times, led by its Environment Desk, has continued to push the conversation forward on a range of issues.

In theory, this tradition could continue without the benefit of a dedicated team. But color me skeptical. In my experience the issues reporters choose to pay attention to, and the lens through which they approach their coverage, is heavily shaped by the beat to which they are assigned. The title a reporter has on their business card can play a major role in determining what gets written and what does not.

It is certainly true that environmental issues are business issues. They’re national political issues. They’re local issues. But try getting a national political reporter to write a nuanced and thoroughly reported article about the threat climate change is posing to food systems. Try getting a business reporter to write about the ways in which American and European biofuels policies are influencing the ability of poor Guatemalans to get enough to eat. I wish you good luck.

The Times has been a leader in environmental coverage because it has shown a commitment to covering the issue via the Environment Desk. We can only hope that the desk’s closure does not turn out as bad as it seems for environmental coverage.

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, we are experiencing a potential shift in the political tides on climate change. Mayor Bloomberg’s endorsement of President Obama Thursday, citing climate change, thrust climate issues into the political debate. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy have also made strong statements calling climate change a reality and calling for more preparedness and reforms in its wake. The media is becoming more willing to connect the dots and call a spade a spade.

Let’s not forget that climate change has ushered in a “new normal” for many communities around the world. Up and down the east coast, many Americans are experiencing the same sense of helplessness, and maybe some level of solidarity with people who are more vulnerable to extreme weather events than those of us who have the resources to cope and institutions able to support us through crisis. The startling images of Sandy remind us of how these crises must feel in places without the kind of support we are able to provide our fellow Americans. Places like Bangladesh, a least developed country with most of its population living in poverty, the majority living in low-lying areas highly vulnerable to floods, storms, and saltwater intrusion. Let’s not forget that Hurricane Sandy itself claimed more than 50 lives in Haiti where cholera is an acute public health threat and communities are still recovering from the earthquake that devastated that country less than two years ago.

So we should seize this temporary moment of realization about the threats all of us face to push forward towards a global response to climate change to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions levels and to direct resources those who need it most to build their preparedness. With the US election tomorrow and the next round of UN climate negotiations happening later this month, we have an opportunity to usher in a new political dynamic on this issue. The onus is now on the American public to hold our political leaders accountable for demonstrating new and sustained leadership on this global crisis. We owe it to the people who lost their lives in this awful storm, and to the estimated 400,000 people who lose their lives every year due to climate-related disasters.

Megan Whitacre is a former Oxfam America intern and current CHANGE leader. 

Here in the Midwest, we know farmers can get creative to deal with fluctuating prices. But this summer local farmers are turning their feed trough into an ice cream sundae. In Elkhart County, Indiana, one farmer has started to feed his dairy cows ice cream sprinkles, cookies, marshmallows, and gummy bears to give his cows the energy they need to produce milk. And in Reno County, Kansas, another farmer is feeding his cows thousands of pounds of chocolate scraps from a local chocolate factory.

Dairy cows on a US farm. Jacob Silberberg/Oxfam America

This isn’t just a treat to help cows beat the heat; in fact, it shows how US farmers are resorting to extreme measures to deal with the worst drought in 50 years across big corn and soy-producing states in the Midwest. Last year saw similar problems with drought in the US; as climate change endures, farmers in these states will continue to face hardship, and food prices will continue to surge. This year produced one of the smallest corn yields in 6 years, according to the USDA, and has sent food prices soaring worldwide. Meanwhile, last year, the US burned up 40 per cent of our domestic corn crop to make ethanol—pushing corn and other food prices higher. The corn farmers feed their animals is pricier than it ever has been—and sometimes not available at all.  And when feed prices go up, so does the cost for meat, dairy products, and other food that comes from animals.

Unfortunately, poor people don’t have the option of chowing on chocolate all day to dampen the impact of food costs. Worldwide, poor people bear the brunt of high food prices as food becomes an increasingly larger percentage of their budgets. And in countries where food is already scarce, not only do high prices make food aid increasingly necessary for basic survival, high prices also hinder the ability of thousands to break out of poverty as school costs and basic necessities are lost to the price of food. So it’s not just a lull in the fight against poverty. It’s a huge step back.

Next time you see headlines about food prices, bacon shortages, or even crazy stories about chocolate-eating cows, remember those who are being impacted the most. Organizations like Oxfam are taking a stand to address this growing food crisis. Join us by taking action on October 16 for World Food Day, and educate others about how they can help.

In the early morning hours on Saturday, the Senate caved to industry pressure and dealt a blow to the planet. This action comes at a time designed to avoid public attention and as many Senators head out to the campaign trail to save their jobs.

The Senate passed the “Thune Bill” (S.1956) by unanimous consent making it illegal for the US airline industry to comply with EU regulations that cut carbon emissions. See previous posts for more details.

The airline industry has been lobbying hard for Thune to pass the Senate for months after gaining a victory in the House last year and climate advocates have had little resources to compete. The vote represents only the third time in history that the US government has made it illegal under US law to comply with the law of another country—putting the European climate change law on par with South Africa’s racist apartheid laws and the anti-Israel boycott by Arab nations.

All along, governments, industry groups, and climate advocates have agreed on one thing: the optimal solution is a global scheme to be implemented by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It’s now in the administration’s hands to proactively seek a global solution in ICAO that generates meaningful emissions reductions with fair provisions for developing countries’ airlines, including finance from the scheme being channeled to developing countries.

Unlike Congress, the administration needs to spend less time stirring up trade wars and kowtowing to industry, and more time leading the way towards an international solution.

I’m thrilled to (finally) have some positive news to report on the climate change front.

Last year, we wrote about a shareholder proposal that Trillium Asset Management (Trillium) and Calvert Investment Management (Calvert) filed with the J.M. Smucker Company urging the company to disclose climate-related risks in their coffee supply chain. Nearly a year later, and after organized pressure urging the company to act, Smucker’s has taken promising first steps to address climate risks.

Smucker’s, better known for their jelly and jams, is a lead distributor of Folgers and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee brands with coffee accounting for nearly half of its profits. Coffee is particularly susceptible to climate-related risks, such as temperature variability and weather extremes, and coffee farmers often lack the resources to support their families in the face of increased unpredictability in crop yield.

In 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted guidance for publicly traded companies, requiring them to disclose climate change risks, such as physical risks to a company’s assets and supply chains. Smucker’s reported on some climate risks in its 10-K filings, but had failed to demonstrate to shareholders how they were managing these risks.

While last year’s shareholder resolution received a strong vote of support, the company did not commit to any meaningful actions in response, leading Trillium and Calvert to file a similar resolution this year. Oxfam America, a Smucker’s shareholder, supported this resolution and in June of 2012, our President Raymond Offenheiser sent a letter to Mark Smucker, Director and President of US Retail Coffee for Smucker’s, urging the company “to adopt a strategic plan which addresses temperature changes, changes in rainfall patterns, and the company’s responsibility to the coffee farming families in its supply chain.”

In response to the growing pressure, the company recently announced a set of new initiatives in their 2012 corporate responsibility report ahead of the company’s annual meeting. The move has lead Trillium and Calvert to withdraw their shareholder proposal. Smucker’s coffee sustainability initiatives include:

• A goal for certified coffee purchases to reach 10 percent of its total retail purchases by 2016.
• A partnership with the Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung Foundation to focus on agronomy training, organizational development, and climate change adaptation strategies in order to improve the farming conditions, yields, and incomes of small-scale coffee farming families.
• A partnership with World Coffee Research with a focus on the science of coffee in order to develop hybrid varieties using classic breeding techniques.

While these actions only represent a first step, it’s critical that the company is beginning to publicly recognize climate change risks in their coffee supply chain. It is a sign that corporate pressure can pay off and that that extreme weather events, like the devastating drought that’s currently gripping much of the US and threatening global food security, are serving as a wake-up call to companies about the economic realities of a changing climate.

Public disclosure of climate risks and the development of a strategic plan to address these risks are important next steps that the company should take to ensure that the company is held accountable and that small-scale farmers in Smucker’s supply chain have adequate resources to prepare for and respond to climate threats. Not only will such resources protect farming communities, they will surely benefit global companies, like Smucker’s, who rely on a stable supply of high-quality coffee beans.

For the sorcerers who practice the dark arts of politics, the hot summer months are generally known for their focus on triviality, hyperbole and petty posturing. This “silly season” is marked mostly by frivolous debates over manufactured controversies as voters tune out and cook out in parks and backyards across the country.

So it comes as no surprise that the latest bit of feigned outrage to embroil the United States Department of Agriculture involves an interoffice newsletter recommending that employees consider taking a modest stab at common sense.

Joining the ranks of thousands of companies, restaurants, schools, average Americans and Oprah, a recent newsletter from the USDA made a humble suggestion for its employees to reduce their environmental footprints: Consider eating a meat-free lunch once per week. The agency was referring to “Meatless Monday,” a project of Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Syracuse universities and supported by many other health-related organizations.

Read the full blog at CNN here. 

Extreme weather is putting climate change back on the radar this summer. Record high heat in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, raging wildfires in the Rockies, deadly wind and thunder storms, and a drought covering more than half of the country have people connecting the dots between climate change and extreme weather events.

But it’s not just weather reports that are telling the story.  Now businesses are also connecting extreme weather and climate change to their bottom lines.

It’s no wonder that some businesses have noticed the seriousness of what’s happening on the climate front.  Nine of out ten companies have suffered weather-related impacts in the past three years and most have seen an intensification of such impacts. The 2011 record-setting drought in Texas, for example, cost the agricultural sector at least $7.6 billion dollars. In the words of the CEO of Duke Energy, “If we’re not ready, we’re in trouble.”

But while some businesses recognize the impact that climate change is having on their supply chains and operations, many say they do not feel sufficiently informed to take action, especially when it comes to how they relate to vulnerable communities. Today, leading companies from the food and beverage, insurance, investment, technology, and energy industries are hoping to fill that gap with a new guide and tool-kit.

The companies engaged in PREP (Partnership for Resilience and Environmental Preparedness) have just released a first-of-its-kind step-by-step guide—the Value Chain Climate Resilience Guide—to spur corporate executives and senior managers to integrate climate resilience throughout their value chains, including how they address climate impacts that are harming vulnerable communities.

The guide includes Business ADAPT, a step-by-step tool designed for businesses to assess and prepare for the risks and opportunities posed by climate change. The tool follows five basic steps to help companies understand the risks they face, take into account the needs of vulnerable communities, identify emerging market opportunities, and effectively manage threats to their bottom line. Each step includes a series of guiding questions that are inspired by existing good practice and are designed to focus on the connection between value chains and community and ecosystem vulnerabilities.

More detailed guidance is provided for sectors that are considered highly vulnerable, including water and energy utilities and companies in the food, beverage, agriculture, and general manufacturing industries.

The Value Chain Climate Resilience guide marks an important step forward in corporate sustainability. By helping businesses manage risks and tap into market opportunities associated with climate change, these businesses are paving the way towards addressing the impacts of a changing climate on companies and communities.