Global Efforts to Tackle Poverty and Climate Change Must Come Together

Today, the issue of extreme poverty and climate change needs mass advocacy and action more than any other. Although the past decade has seen the most successful anti-poverty push in human history, life remains bleak for hundreds of millions of people affected by climate change. The challenges of education, disease, poor sanitation and gender discrimination still weigh heavily. Additionally, the increase in wealth inequality threatens to ignite new waves of social upheaval.

The global population is racing toward 9 billion people in 2050, with nearly 3 billion expected to join the middle class in the next two decades. Meanwhile, 1.3 billion people are still trapped in extreme poverty ($1.25 per day), with another billion hovering on the brink (between $1.25 and $2.00). Countries will need to make an even deeper commitment to achieve the ambitious goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030.

The urgency of the climate challenge is likewise becoming clearer. Global emissions are on the rise. Climate impacts are no longer a distant threat. They have already arrived. The current decade is the hottest on record.

The world is experiencing deadly heatwaves, new diseases, and food price spikes that can be linked to climate change. People in already vulnerable living conditions will be hit hardest. People are suffering due to climate change impacts on a daily basis, and as the severity of impacts increases, so does the number of those affected.

This year alone we have seen several devastating floods, raging wildfires, dying coral reefs, record Arctic sea ice melt, and record sea level rise. All of these events affected and are affecting humans worldwide, sometime directly and sometimes in more subtle ways. However, they do disproportionately affect poor and disenfranchised people worldwide.

Both reducing climate change impacts and poverty are two of the defining issues of the 21st century in trying to achieve sustainable development; they are also intrinsically linked. Furthermore, limited opportunities and disenfranchisement based on age, gender, or ethnicity, amongst others, can aggravate people’s vulnerability and marginalise them further.

The multiple dimensions of inequality add another layer of complexity to the already wickedly complicated task that is managing climate risks. However, failing to account for inequalities and their interlinkages with climate change can lead to their reinforcement and exacerbation.

The relationship between climate change and poverty

Currently climate change acts as a main barrier for the eradication of poverty, it is an important factor in keeping or bringing households to poverty. One example would be climate-related disasters like floods, which can be life threatening and also highly destructive, robbing people of homes and the few assets they have. Since people living in poverty usually have assets of very low quality and tend to not have savings, or only very few, recovery from disasters can be brutal.

Other instances include droughts, which not only lead to crop losses but also to spikes in food prices. Since many poor people depend on agricultural income, this leads to a vicious circle in which their income is decimated due to droughts affecting their crop yields and people not being able to buy food due to rising prices.

However, there is also a much bigger, structural, issue: poor people are often pushed to settle in at risk areas. There are different reasons for this, for example, coastal areas tend to offer larger labour markets which attract poorer populations in search of opportunities, in other places land availability and housing prices push people into risky areas like steep slopes and riverbanks. This significantly contributes to the disproportionate climate and weather exposure of people living in poverty.

Inclusive and climate-informed development & adaptation are key

In the coming decade climate policies are unlikely to alter the amount of climate change, so it will be of utmost importance to prioritise the reduction of vulnerability of poor populations. A recent World Bank report found that while development and adaptation will not prevent all climate change impacts, by 2030 they could prevent most of its effects on poverty.

To achieve that, development will have to be rapid and inclusive, this includes providing social safety nets and universal health coverage. Investments in this regard will have to take into account climate risks so as to avoid creating new vulnerabilities, and climate change adaptation will have to accompany these efforts in a targeted manner. Meaningful and sustainable actions will only be achieved if they take into account poverty and other inequalities.

The links between poverty, development, and climate change are clear and unavoidable. Achievement of development goals will be fleeting if climate change is ignored. When done right, investments in infrastructure, agriculture, and energy--traditional development issues--are among the most effective ways to reduce emissions. However, these topics tend to be negotiated in separate rooms, while on-the-ground responses are uncoordinated. World leaders and UN officials need to understand the common challenges in order to succeed.

Consider, for example, a farmer in Niger who plants trees and crops using traditional techniques that help reverse desertification, increase rainfall, sequester carbon dioxide, and improve productivity. These efforts are already paying off as Niger's cereal production has increased by 500,000 tons per year, or enough to feed 2.5 million people.

Smart, sustainable development will encourage this kind of solution. In Indonesia, a fisherman sees his catch decline, as rising carbon dioxide levels and increasing ocean acidification put coral reefs in peril. Integrated solutions, such as locally managed marine protected areas, can boost income from tourism and preserve fish populations, while enhancing the reef's resilience to climate change.

What, then, will it take to develop a more coherent and ambitious approach?

First, we need a unified political narrative that advances both agendas. For reasons of politics and complexity, negotiations on climate change and sustainable development run in parallel, yet climate change and development are two sides of the same coin.

Second, at the heart of both agendas is fairness. Development and climate change are laden with both historic and present-day inequalities. The poor in developing countries--those poised to bear the brunt of climate change--did the least to cause the problem. Developed countries should reduce carbon pollution and honor their commitment to provide aid equivalent to 0.7 percent of gross national income.

Yet developing countries and major emerging economies also have a role: their emissions are increasing dramatically and it will not be possible to meet the climate challenge if they do not make a serious commitment to low-carbon growth.

Finally, Policies and financing models of the past 50 years will not get us the success we want and need. We need to work differently, and we need to start now if we are to meet the goals the world has set for 2030.

Greater and more effective financing is needed. The public finance so far promised is a drop in the bucket of the challenge at hand, and fragmented planning processes and funding streams for development and climate change may be used to pit the two against each other. Wherever practical, they must instead work for mutual benefit.

We need to be far more strategic about our approach to financing and address the SDG funding gap, we see the financing landscape is becoming ever more complex, and there are a wide range of resources available to developing countries .However, all these different flows have distinct roles and comparative advantages, and some are more effective in supporting poverty reduction efforts than others.

None of this will be easy. Yet, the potential payoffs are immense. Success will provide a much-needed boost for international cooperation. On the other hand, if the process falls short, it would be a devastating blow for the multilateral system.

Ultimately, putting in place strong and fair approaches to sustainable development and climate change will improve the lives of billions of people.

Yes, it is possible to tackle climate change and end poverty! We already know that it is possible to achieve high levels of human development with relatively low ecological impact, because some countries have already done it, like Costa Rica and Cuba. We can hold such countries up as models for other developing countries to emulate. World leaders have an obligation to get this right.