How will ending poverty
impact climate change?

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Decent Living Energy

This project develops a body of knowledge to quantify the energy needs and climate change impacts of eradicating poverty and providing decent living standards to all. The research will address three questions:

  1. Which goods and services, and with what characteristics, constitute Decent Living Standards?
  2. What energy resources are required to provide these goods and services in different countries, and what impact will this energy use have on climate change? See results for Brazil and India
  3. How do the constituents of decent living and their energy needs evolve as countries develop?

This research will identify opportunities to shift developing societies towards low-carbon pathways, and substantiate countries’ claims for ‘carbon space’ for development.

Click on any country in the map above to see its progress toward Decent Living below

Search for any country above to see its progress toward Decent Living below

India’s gaps in Decent Living to top

World Bank poverty line
Health
Living conditions
Education
Information & communication
Data are from the World Bank Indicators and the Demographic and Health Surveys of USAID.
Data unavailable for some years for many countries (shown as "NA" in the chart).

Further reading

India’s energy requirements for Decent Living

Buildout energy (in Exajoule):
Initially, to build out the infrastructure for basic services.
Maintenance energy (in Exajoule):
Annually, to deliver these services and maintain infrastructure.
Health: Food production to support healthy diets and health care services
Living conditions: Durable shelter, utilities, refrigerators, clean stoves, basic comfort (lighting, heating/cooling)
Mobility: Vehicles and transport infrastructure
Education: Education expenditure
Information & communication: TVs, cell phones

Further reading

India’s emissions from Decent Living

Emissions from Decent Living are still work in progress. Another approach we have done is to project emissions associated with human progress based on different indicators, based on the historical relationship between energy growth and each development indicator, allowing for technology-driven efficiency improvements. It shows that achieving human development is likely to be less carbon-intensive than overall economic growth in the long-term, but we still need more growth to achieve a decent standard of human development.

Note that here we assume that any allowance for India’s ‘fair share’ of emissions would involve financial compensation, rather than higher emissions. These data do not account for energy policies since 2010.

Life expectancy: likely emissions range associated with achieving an aggregative life expectancy of 70 and 72 years respectively.
Basic needs: likely emissions range associated with providing 84 and 90 % of Indians with basic needs respectively. Basic needs include adequate nutrition, primary education, low infant mortality, and access to electricity, water and sanitation.
(Click to show/hide)
GDP: total emissions in India for a GDP growth rate of 6.5 % per year.
Climate: An illustrative cost-efficient scenario of emissions in a world where global warming is limited to 2 C by the end of the century with a 50:50 chance.

Further reading