ipsnews.net (05.04.2024) Climate change is exacerbating inequalities between and within countries, disproportionately affecting poor households in rural areas. In fact, we know that more than half of the resources of the poor – a large part of whom are small-scale farmers – are lost due to climatic hazards. This has negative impacts on the incomes of these people and their ability to meet their essential needs, including food. As the new FAO report The Unjust Climate finds, floods widen the income gap between poor and non-poor households in rural areas by approximately USD 21 billion a year, and heat stress by more than USD 20 billion a year. Despite the critically important role that small-scale farmers play in growing the food that feeds us and in stewarding the natural resources that determine the health of planet Earth, only 1.7 % of climate finance currently reaches them Every year, over a trillion dollars are allocated to combating climate change and its consequences. Far too little of this financing reaches the most vulnerable. Shockingly, despite the critically important role that small-scale farmers play in growing the food that feeds us and in stewarding the natural resources that determine the health of planet Earth, only 1.7 % of climate finance currently reaches them.