Tackle Climate Change Now or Risk 720 Million People Sliding Back Into Extreme Poverty Report Warns

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An astonishing 720 million people around the world face falling back into extreme poverty unless we tackle climate change immediately, warns a new report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

The report was published as world leaders gathered this week at the United Nations General Assembly and agreed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), among which is the eradication of extreme poverty byย 2030.

This goal is achievable, according to the ODI, but not without a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions peak in 2030, and a fall to near zero by 2100. โ€œClimate change increases the probability that those who emerge from extreme poverty will be at risk of falling back into it,โ€ itย concludes.

Beyond 2030

Sustaining poverty reduction therefore relies on curbing climate change the report argues.โ€œIf the global community is serious about eradicating extreme poverty for good, it needs to think beyond 2030. Eradicating poverty by 2030 will be no great accomplishment if we are incapable of sustaining that achievement from 2030ย onwards.โ€

It continues: โ€œIt is policy incoherent for big GHG emitting countries, especially industrialised ones, to support poverty eradication as a development priority, whether through domestic policy or international assistance, while failing to shift their own economy toward a zero net emissionsย pathway.โ€

As the report notes, progress on poverty eradication over the past two decades has reduced the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day in the developing world โ€“ defined as the extreme poor โ€“ from 43 percent in 1990 to about 17 percent as ofย 2011.

Analysing data on the impact of climate change on food prices, the effects of childhood malnutrition and stunting, the productivity of primary sectors (such as agriculture or mining), and increased droughts, the ODI estimates that up to 720 million people are at risk of facing extreme poverty from 2030 to 2050 under a business-as-usual scenario. As the report starkly points out, this is roughly the same number of people that exited extreme poverty over the last twoย decades.

However, this number is likely to be much higher if the effects of sea-level rise, an increase in airborne diseases, and conflict โ€“ among other climate impacts โ€“ are factored intoย calculations.

Ecomodernistย Manifesto

The ODI report comes at the same time as a group of individuals calling themselves the โ€˜Ecomodernistsโ€™ launched their manifesto in London yesterday โ€“ among those promoting it include self-styled โ€˜climate lukewarmistโ€™ Matt Ridley, and former environment secretary and climate denier Owenย Paterson.

As the manifesto explains, ecomodernism believes in human rights and freedoms – chief among these, the alleviation of globalย poverty.

However, in contrast to the ODIโ€™s report, their manifesto goes on to argue that โ€œclimate change and other global ecological challenges are not the most important immediate concerns for the majority of the worldโ€™s people. Nor should theyย be.โ€

Instead, technology should be the main driver in helping developing countries to achieve modern living standards and end material poverty it says. This includes intensive agriculture, nuclear energy, reforestation and urbanisation. Furthermore it argues that renewable energy is inadequate for meeting global energy demands and that there need not be a limit to economicย growth.

Economicย Growth

But as the ODI argues: โ€œWhile [economic] growth is unquestionably part of reaching zero extreme poverty, relying on high growth rates alone to achieve this goal would be unwise. First, recent high growth rates may not be sustained. Projecting them decades into the future paints an overly optimistic view of extreme poverty inย 2030.

โ€œIn reality, economic growth has become increasingly less effective at reducing poverty because of the increasing inequality of that growth. Since 2005, inequalities have widened even further in developing countries, leading to lower rates of poverty reduction than would have been the case if inequality had remainedย constant.โ€

Achieving a zero-emissions future, with peak emissions within 15 years, requires all countries to โ€œtransformโ€ their economies, the ODI explains. Deep domestic GHG cuts are part of developed countriesโ€™ obligation it says, with middle and low-income countries also ensuring their current investment choices reduce their forecastย emissions.

โ€œThis presents a global challenge that some argue conflicts with the goal of eradicating extreme poverty,โ€ ODI acknowledges, โ€œHowever, early evidence suggests low-emission economic development, although radically different from historic experience, is consistent with the combination of moderate, sustained and pro-poor growth and reductions in inequality needed to eradicateย poverty.โ€

Therefore addressing growth and inequality together is โ€œfar more likely to reduce poverty than a strategy reliant on attempts to maximise growth alone, based on unrealisticย projections.โ€

Agriculture andย Cities

Pointing out that industrialised agriculture is a significant contributor to GHG emissions, the ODI looks to the World Bank which argues that โ€œimproving the productivity, profitability and sustainability of smallholder farming is the main pathway out of poverty in using agriculture inย development.โ€

Doing so presents a โ€œmajor synergyโ€, says the ODI, for reducing poverty and emissions โ€œwhere there is the institutional capacity and political will to limit the land-use conversion of forests and other natural stores of GHGs.โ€

And on urbanisation, the ODI agrees it can drive positive change but only if city planners and policymakers tackle poverty and climate change together rather than โ€œentrench and perpetuate old problems for newย peopleโ€.

โ€œThe impact of unchecked climate change creates an insurmountable challenge for the zero poverty target,โ€ it argues, โ€œbut climate change mitigation needย not.โ€

Photo: Asian Development Bank viaย Flickr

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Kyla is a freelance writer and editor with work appearing in the New York Times, National Geographic, HuffPost, Mother Jones, and Outside. She is also a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists.

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