Climate Change Impact, Adaptation, and Resilience in the Developing World
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (PST)
- Chair: Eric Zou, University of Michigan
Social Assistance and Adaptation to Flooding in Bangladesh
Abstract
Bangladesh faces increasingly severe environmental risks due to climate change, with women and girls disproportionately affected. Within Bangladesh, there is growing interest in the potential of social assistance programs (such as those providing cash or in-kind transfers, often with complementary trainings or other activities) to build climate resilience among women and girls. Social assistance programs target large numbers of poor and vulnerable households – which are hardest hit by climate hazards – and are well-established in Bangladesh. Many also name women as primary transfer recipients or include other components targeting women, thus having potential to be gender-responsive. However, little rigorous evidence exists globally on the role of social assistance programs in promoting women’s and girls’ climate resilience, with even less specific to Bangladesh. We contribute to addressing this evidence gap by bringing together union-level remote sensing data with longitudinal household survey data from a randomized trial of a social assistance program in Bangladesh. The social assistance program, the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI), provided monthly cash or food transfers, with or without intensive nutrition behavior change communication to mothers of young children in poor rural households. TMRI was implemented from 2012-2014 as two cluster-randomized controlled trials, in the Northwest (Rangpur) and in the Southern coast (Barisal and Khulna). TMRI treatment and control households were interviewed at baseline, midline, and endline rounds (2012, 2013, 2014), as well as 4 years post program (2018). We first construct measures of union-level exposure to flood hazards for all TMRI households in each of these rounds. We then use the randomized design of TMRI to assess the role that receiving social assistance played in protecting household-level and gender-disaggregated outcomes in the short- and longer-term in the context of this exposure, as well as the extent to which it promoted specific gendered coping and adaptive behaviors.Microclimate Risks and Urban Businesses
Abstract
A heat wave pans out differently across areas within a city. This paper documents these microclimate variations, estimates the damage function on city businesses, and studies mitigation strategies. We: (1) leverage high-resolution satellite data to document sub-city temperature variations during a hot day; (2) use geo-located revenue and consumer traffic data from over 150,000 restaurants and other eatery service establishments in a mega city of China to estimate the damage function of these microclimate shocks on business outcomes; and (3) present new evidence that urban green spaces around businesses mitigate the microclimate shocks they experience. Our research highlights location microclimate management as an important part of business strategies in the face of rising climate risks.Climate Change, Intimate Partner Violence, and the Moderating Effects of Climate Resilience Initiatives
Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of climate change on intimate partner violence in Bangladesh, and shows that policy can mitigate much if not all of the harmful consequences of climate shocks on women. Utilizing a novel dataset linking geo-referenced meteorological earth observation remote-sensed data with information on women’s agency from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys, we find that dry shocks increase tolerance for intimate partner violence among women in poor and agriculture-dependent communities, amplifying existing socio-environmental vulnerabilities. Climate resilience projects funded by the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT) mitigate the negative impacts of dry shocks, highlighting an important role for such initiatives that have positive externalities in terms of ameliorating some of the deleterious effects of changing climate. We show that effects are mitigated as BCCT projects enhance resilience in agriculture by reducing the impacts of droughts on acreage and yield in rainfed agriculture. Our findings offer insights into the complex environmental and socio-economic dynamics that shape gendered climate change effects and underline the role of targeted policy interventions in fostering climate adaptation and women’s wellbeing.Discussant(s)
Kelton Minor
,
Columbia University
Aparna Howlader
,
Chatham University
Victoria Xie
,
Santa Clara University
Valerie Mueller
,
Arizona State University
JEL Classifications
- Q2 - Renewable Resources and Conservation
- I2 - Education and Research Institutions