Bolivian women outside their house.Climate change is a global phenomenon which affects all regions of the world.

In Latin America the principal source of emissions is deforestation, and tackling this can contribute to slowing down the rate of climate change if allied to sharp emissions reductions in industrialised countries.

But for most of the poor in the world, and Latin America is no exception, the more immediate challenge is how to adapt to the changes in climate that are inevitably occurring.

Thus CARE’s work on climate change in Latin America combines awareness raising and education alongside practical initiatives for climate change adaptation. It also seeks to use the evidence from its practical experience with communities and partners to influence public policy and practice, by undertaking advocacy at local, national and international levels.

CARE’s approach in Latin America is consistent with CARE International’s overall strategy for climate change, which focuses on: Adaptation; Advocacy; and Organisational Change. Each of these is managed by a Theme Team which comprises representatives from across the CARE world, including Latin America, and together they form the Poverty, Environment and Climate Change Network.

CARE UK is supporting three initiatives that deal with different aspects of climate change in Latin America. In each project the objective is to have ‘Increased the capacity of poor people, communities and governments to reduce disaster risk and vulnerability to climate change and to adapt to the impacts of climate change’.

The first of these initiatives is the ‘Adaptation to the retreat of glaciers in the Andes’ project. This is a large regional programme between the governments of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, with seed funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), managed by the World Bank and Dfid. CARE is a strategic partner in all three countries for community capacity building and implementation of pilot projects for adaptation to glacial retreat – in particular, the adoption of new water management practices.

In the second initiative CARE has been working with the Brazilian state governments of Piauí and Ceará to incorporate ‘pro-poor climate change policy in northeastern Brazil’ into public policy. The semi-arid Nordeste region of Brazil will be severely affected by climate change, with according to estimates some 70% of agricultural production at risk. However this threat is neglected by the major institutions in the country, where the climate change agenda is dominated by two issues – deforestation in the Amazon, and carbon offset projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (neither of which are particularly relevant to the Nordeste).

The third project ‘Making carbon markets work for the poor’ aims to explore the possibility of using carbon resources for combating poverty, through three pilot carbon projects in Peru, Brazil, and Guatemala, in different sectors.

Please donate now to support CARE's work on climate change.