In Chapter 8: Poverty, Livelihoods, and Sustainable Development, the IPCC has a sub-section titled “Box 8.1: Climate Traps: A Focus on Refugees and Internally Displaced Peoples” where the authors highlight the extreme vulnerability refugees and internally displaced peoples have to climate change and how this cycle of multidimensional poverty perpetuates itself - what we might term ‘climate trap.’
The term ‘climate trap’ or ‘poverty trap’ as it is more commonly known, is a concept that is widely used by development practitioners or academics within the scope of development. ‘Poverty trap’ is the notion that poverty begets poverty. Take for example a family in a poor rural community in a developing country who grows crops for sustenance and possibly, livelihood. It is not uncommon for such families to be in dire situations economically that children aren’t able to attend school because even they must work in the fields for their families to survive. During my time in Mongolia, and now in Kyrgyzstan, I’ve seen many families forced into situations like this.
