Reducing inequality and poverty while mitigating climate change: key challenges for research and practice in middle-income countries in Africa and Latin America
Journal Article
2012
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MAPS
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Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town.
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
This paper provides some answers to this question and outlines future research on mitigation and inequality. The question is relevant, because developing countries have come under growing pressure to introduce mitigation actions that help to reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. These mitigation actions need to be ‘nationally appropriate’ (UNFCCC 2007) and different from those in the developed countries, taking the economic structures, poverty and inequalities into account. Mitigating emissions and reducing poverty at the same time sharpens the trade-off. Governments need to decide on expenditure of limited resources on poverty or mitigation. According to previous research the need for such a trade-off decreases when countries become richer (Ravallion et al. 2000). This implies that governments have a growing option to achieve both ends.
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Reference:
Rennkamp, B; Moyo, A; Wills, W & Grottera, C. (2012). Reducing inequality and poverty while mitigating climate change: key challenges for research and practice in middle-income countries in Africa and Latin America. MAPS Research Paper. Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town: LIMA/COPPE/UCT, MAPS.