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Hurricanes and tropical storms are likely to increase in intensity. With 26 tropical storms and 14 hurricanes, the 2005 hurricane season is rated one of the most active and destructive in history. In Central America, the most destructive hurricane was Stan, the eighteenth cyclone of the season. Although it reached only Category 1, it left a trail of death and destruction in its wake. The storm caused flooding and mudslides in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. The entire Central American isthmus suffered its effects.
Sea-level rise is likely to hit coastal areas, particularly in vulnerable parts of the Caribbean, Central America, Venezuela, and Uruguay, leading to loss of coastal land, infrastructure, and biodiversity, as well as the intrusion of soil-contaminating saltwater. Sixty of Latin America’s seventy-seven largest cities are located on the coast. Snow and rainfall patterns are changing, creating extra stress on already limited freshwater availability in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and western Argentina. In subtropical South America, east of the Andes, rainfall has been increasing since about 1970 accompanied by more destructive, sudden deluges. More northern areas of South America are expected to experience greater warming than southern areas of the continent. Climate models predict more rainfall in eastern South America and less in central and southern Chile. Both the positive and the negative rainfall trends on either side of the Andes are predicted to continue for decades. Yet, indicating the likelihood of greater and opposite extremes, the 2005 drought in the Amazon Basin was probably the worst since records began. At its height, river levels in parts of the Amazon were at their lowest for 35–60 years.
Farming: Farming employs around 30–40 per cent of the working population of Latin America. Studies in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay show yield decreases in a number of key crops – barley, grapes, maize, potatoes, soybeans, and wheat – potentially linked to global warming. Climate change could also lead to more damaging impacts from plant and animal diseases and pests. Large alterations in Latin American ecosystems resulting from climate change impacts would have the potential to endanger the livelihoods of subsistence farmers and pastoral peoples, who make up a large portion of the rural populations of the Andean plateaus and tropical and subtropical forest areas. But urban populations that depend on food and other resources from rural areas are also at risk.
Impacts on the poorest
The climate in Latin America and the Caribbean is changing and will continue to do so. The impacts of climate change are hugely magnified by abuse of the natural environment – the destruction or inappropriate use and management of natural resources. This abuse is rarely due to the activities of poor communities, who have little say in, or are themselves victims of infamous ‘mega projects’ built in the name of development, illegal logging and deforestation, over-fishing, mining, and governmental neglect. But because of this environmental damage it is much more difficult for poor communities to cope with climate change. Women suffer most because they are the main providers of food, fuel and water for the household. The difficulties faced by communities in coping or adapting are greatly increased by the neglect of the needs and capacities of women. As one recent regional survey concludes:
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