Study: Reducing poverty and climate goals aren’t at odds

Enlarge / Eliminating extreme poverty won't necessarily boost emissions as much as people fear. (credit: Soltan Frederic)

The United Nations' first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) aims to eradicate poverty around the world. If implemented, however, it might see people consume more-drive more often, buy more products-and, thus, produce more carbon emissions, fueling climate change. With more money to spend, and therefore more consumption, there is usually a higher carbon footprint," Benedikt Bruckner, a master's student of energy and environmental sciences at the University of Groningen, told Ars.

But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way, according to a new study put out by Bruckner, other researchers out of Groningen, and colleagues in the United States and China.

Published in Nature, the research makes use of high-level data about consumption patterns to show that reaching SDG 1-which shoots to move every person out of extreme poverty (under $1.90 per day) and half of everyone above the poverty lines of their respective countries-won't excessively fuel climate change.

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