2015 was a landmark year for international policymaking. The year started with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and ended with the climate goals, known as the Paris Agreement.
While 17 goals constitute the SDG, we focus on the first one i.e., No poverty in all its forms everywhere. Extreme poverty per the international poverty line (IPL) stands at USD 1.90/day. The World Bank presented two additional levels at USD 3.20/day and USD 5.50/day. It means getting people out of these should be the priority of the rest of us.
Contradicting goals
At first sight, you may find a contradiction between these two goals. It is well known that carbon dioxide emissions increase with wealth (consumption), and targetting SDG1 flags an inconvenient truth of raising it further.
Asymmetry in emissions
A paper published last week (14/Feb/2022) in Nature Sustainability addresses this problem. The work computes the potential CO2 emissions due to the upliftment of masses from absolute poverty and proves that the increase is negligible in comparison with the total. The reason lies in the asymmetry of emissions between the rich and the poor. Let’s understand the math behind the claims.
In 2017, 9.2% of the global population lived in extreme poverty of less than USD 1.90/day, and their average footprint is 0.4 tCO2 (per person per year). Another 14.9% live between 1.90 and 3.2 USD/day. They contribute around 0.6 tCO2. The last batch includes about 19.5% of people who live between 3.2 and 5.5 USD/day and at 0.9 tCO2/person/year. To put these numbers in perspective, see the following:
| CO2 Footprint (tCO2/person/yr) | |
| Global Average | 4.5 |
| US Average | 14.5 |
| top 10% US | 54.9 |
| Europe Average | 6.3 |
Imagine we aim to lift the people in 1.90 (0.74 Billion) and 3.2 (1.2 Billion) USD/day bracket to 5.5 (1.6 Billion). It would mean 3.5 billion people in the USD 5.5 per day category with an average footprint of 0.9 tCO2. So the current emissions from the 3.5 billion = 0.74 * 0.4 + 1.2 * 0.6 + 1.6 * 0.9 = 2.46 GtCO2/yr. The new emissions (after 1.9 and 3.2 are raised above the 5.5 mark) = 0.74 * 0.9 + 1.2 * 0.9 + 1.6 * 0.9 = 3.19 GtCO2/yr. The difference = 3.19 – 2.46= 0.73 GtCO2/yr. The additional emissions, 0.73 is about 2% of the current global emission of 36 GtCO2/yr. And they live in India, China, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
Impacts of poverty alleviation on national and global carbon emissions: Nature Sustainability
Extreme poverty trends: World bank blogs
UNSDG
Paris Agreement: UNFCC
