In 2006, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Mohammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank for their
roles in developing microfinance as an ‘ever more important instrument in the fight against poverty’ (Norwegian Nobel Committee 2006). The following year, the award was given to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for their roles in educating the world about the unprecedented global challenge of climate change. In making these unusual and even controversial awards, the Nobel Committee recognised the remarkable fact that, in the space of just three decades, microfinance and climate change science have generated broad social movements grounded in the belief that these processes have the capacity to radically transform life around the world.
Ironically, while in their most optimistic expressions, the proponents of microfinance imagine cutting global poverty in half within a few years, scientists have identified the same population of desperately poor as among the first people who will confront the negative impacts of climate change. Specifically, the IPCC has identified developing countries as more vulnerable to climate change damages and argues that ‘this condition is most extreme among the poorest people’ (IPCC 2001: 227). Development assistance agencies have warned that climate change may stall or reverse development efforts, making it more difficult to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (ADB et al. 2003). If climate change is indeed a threat to which the poor are acutely vulnerable and if microfinance is in fact a tool that can reduce the vulnerability of the poor, then the possibility of linking this tool to climate change adaptation is of considerable importance.
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