World Bank Group. Open Knowledge
The poverty cost of greenhouse gas emissions highlights a central tension in global development: economic growth reduces poverty today but contributes to climate change that increases poverty in the future. This paper introduces a new metric, emissions-adjusted poverty, to capture both dynamics in a single framework. By linking current emissions to future poverty outcomes, the analysis provides a more human-centered way to evaluate climate and development trade-offs.
Emissions-Adjusted Poverty and Climate Impact
The core contribution of the paper is the concept of emissions-adjusted poverty, which combines a country’s current poverty with the future global poverty generated by its emissions. This measure reaches zero only when both poverty is eliminated and emissions reach net-zero levels. Unlike traditional metrics such as the social cost of carbon, this approach expresses climate damage in terms of “years of poverty” rather than monetary loss.
The findings suggest that each kiloton of carbon dioxide emitted today leads to approximately two additional person-years of extreme poverty globally by 2100 . This reframing emphasizes the human consequences of emissions and prioritizes impacts on the poorest populations, making the metric more intuitive and policy-relevant.
Global Distribution of Poverty Impacts
The poverty cost of greenhouse gas emissions is highly unequal across countries and regions. High- and upper-middle-income countries generate the majority of emissions-related poverty but experience only a small share of its consequences. In contrast, regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa bear a disproportionate burden of future poverty impacts despite contributing relatively little to global emissions.
The data indicate that global emissions in 2024 alone are expected to generate 141 million additional years of extreme poverty by the end of the century . Notably, most of this burden will fall on poorer regions, reinforcing the asymmetry between those responsible for emissions and those most affected by their consequences.
Economic Growth, Emissions, and Poverty Trade-Offs
The relationship between growth and the poverty cost of greenhouse gas emissions differs significantly across income levels. In low-income countries, the benefits of economic growth overwhelmingly outweigh the future poverty costs associated with emissions. Even with relatively high emission intensity, growth remains essential for reducing domestic poverty.
However, the situation is more complex in high-income countries. In many cases, the future poverty generated by emissions can exceed the domestic poverty reduction benefits of growth unless emissions intensity declines. This implies that cleaner growth is crucial for maintaining positive outcomes in wealthier economies.
The analysis also shows that reducing emission intensity can significantly lower future poverty. For example, aligning global emissions with lower-carbon pathways could prevent billions of cumulative years of extreme poverty by the end of the century .
Policy Implications and Measurement Limits
The poverty cost of greenhouse gas emissions offers a different perspective from traditional economic metrics. While standard approaches may prioritize total income losses, this framework emphasizes distributional effects and fairness. It highlights the ethical risks of policies that could limit growth in poorer countries to reduce global emissions.
At the same time, the measure has limitations. It relies on projections of economic growth, climate impacts, and inequality, all of which involve uncertainty. Nevertheless, the framework provides a clearer way to assess how current decisions affect both present and future poverty, supporting more balanced policy discussions.
Reference
Hallegatte, S., Mahler, D. G., & Decerf, B. (2026). The Poverty Cost of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. World Bank. https://hdl.handle.net/10986/44693