Ahead of the UN Climate Summit in Paris (COP21) set for December 2015, Prof. Shyama V. Ramani was asked to give a lecture as part of the “Economists Facing Climate Change” series. Here she explains the links between poverty and climate change: what the problems are and how we — globally — can address them.
There is increasing acknowledgement of the premise that climate change is real, its impact is worldwide and it is in the interest of all countries to not only mitigate climate change, but also help the vulnerable countries and the most vulnerable populations within any country to adapt to it.
However, recognition of these propositions (by at least many) does not equate with full understanding or agreement by all – of the nature of this process, its impact, or of a common plan of action. Thus, in order to partially contribute to providing insight on the above issues, the present work aims to explore the interrelationships between poverty and climate change from four angles.
First, we present our broad conceptual framework of the co-evolution of poverty alleviation and climate change in growth trajectories– which we view as a game. Second, we conduct a meta-analysis of selected economics literature on the same. Third, as development practitioners in India, we present our insights, garnered through personal experience and observations over time at two levels – (i) accompaniment of a set of rural poor as a social entrepreneur; and (ii) accompaniment of public agencies by planning and implementation of designs for climate mitigation and adaptation as a consultant. See below for the full presentation.
LECTURE SLIDES
MEDIA CREDITS
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