This chapter builds on AR5 and the IPCC SR 1.5ºC on key limits to the adaptation of natural and social systems that are compounded by the effects of poverty and inequality, such as on water scarcity, ecosystems alteration and degradation, coastal cities in relation to sea level rise, cyclones and coastal erosion, food systems and human health . Climate change risks could have substantial negative impacts on climate-sensitive livelihoods of smallholder farmers, fisheries communities, Indigenous People, urban poor and informal settlements, with limits to adaptation evidenced in the loss income, ecosystems, health and increasing migration . The chapter also addresses how ecological thresholds and socioeconomic determinants of vulnerabilities are linked to soft and hard adaptation limits, including the potential and magnitude of livelihood risks in the future. For instance, a hard limit associated with losses of coral reefs in a 1.5ºC warmer world will lead to substantial loss of income and livelihoods for coastal communities , including loss of culture- and place-based attachment . Hard adaptation limits are expected for the Arctic ecosystem. Their threshold will affect residents of Arctic regions dependent on hunting and fishing livelihoods . New emerging considerations to ecological limits to adaptation, such as severe glacier retreat and Amazon forest dieback, is expected to affect the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and Indigenous People through crop yield failures, biodiversity loss, reduced hydropower capacity and health . While a knowledge gap remains on the projected risks of increasing global temperature to climate-sensitive livelihoods among Global South countries and specific groups of people, current observations show negative impacts to livelihoods for tens to hundreds of millions of people. Thus, without sustainable, equitable and urgent adaptation measures, maladaptation risks are likely to further increase vulnerability, marginalisation and ecological tipping points among the poor within countries .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report