Domestic violence is cost of climate change for Sri Lanka women - The Japan Times
Domestic violence is cost of climate change for Sri Lanka women - The Japan Times
After years of scant rainfall in a remote region of Sri Lanka, farmer Renuka Karunarathna's crops failed and as the family's income dwindled, her husband took his anger out on her, beating her so badly she had to go to a hospital.
"I have got beaten up so many times," Karunarathna told said in her village of Sapumal Thenna in Sri Lanka's North Central Province. "I suffer a lot."
Domestic violence is a little-studied side effect of climate change, especially in poorer nations where increasingly frequent heat waves, droughts, floods and storms can exacerbate economic hardship, which in turn can fuel anger and violence.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”