The issue is complex. in my opinion it depends on the context. In the African context poverty is being used to help climate change. We are pushing the poor to alleviate poverty by 2030. in the process we are worsening the climate change issues

Dear Tom, thank you for your comment.

You have here the interaction of two critical issues, an environmental issue/climate change and a social issue/poverty.  Did climate change caused poverty?, well when climate change became an issue there was already extreme poverty.  Did the poor contributed more in emission terms than the rich in antroprocentric climate change? perhaps not...

But now protecting the poor seem to be the way to go in the green growth model, which will give the opportunity to organization like the world bank to focus on protection of the actual poor instead of following its clear goal of erradicating poverty once and for all.  Since the poor are also consumers/demand and they have no o very limited purchasing power remaining poor but protected from climate change will still leave them probably outside the food supply promoted by FAO and face the threat a extreme hunger in an ongoing basis.

If a bank does not meet its profits goal, the bank manager will be probably fired, but if you have two goals, profits and eliminating poverty, and you constantly achieve the profit goal and constantly fail the poverty reduction goal you are still in business...It is interesting.

I think the link climate change and poverty should be far more than just protection

Perhaps you will find the following ideas interesting Tom:

Have a nice day!

Are We Appropriately Assigning Causes to Global Warming?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276190_Are_We_Appropriately_Assigning_Causes_to_Global_Warming

Pointing out the expected price and cost impacts on consumers and producers from implementing water privatization under conditions of income insecurity and scarcity

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276543_Pointing_out_the_expected_price_and_cost_impacts_on_consumers_and_producers_from_implementing_water_privatization_under_conditions_of_income_insecurity_and_scarcity

Article Are We Appropriately Assigning Causes to Global Warming?

Article Pointing out the expected price and cost impacts on consumer...

Lucio,

Climate change is being caused by the rich counties. It is not generally realised that their wealth comes from burning fossil fuels, not from superior national characteristics such as American Exceptionalism. If we are to tackle climate change then the rich nations must burn less fossil fuels and become poorer, but they are not prepared to do that..It is not helped by the claim that the poor countries will suffer most from the increase in droughts floods etc. That does not provide an incentive to the rich to cut back, when they believe that it will not affect them.

Dear Alastair,, thanks for your comment, in great part yes, and the choices are difficult, like cutinng back production and consuptions...

You will find these ideas intesting

Substituting The More is Better Paradigm for The Less is Better Paradigm: Identifying Key Transitional Problems

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276526_Substituting_The_More_is_Better_Paradigm_for_The_Less_is_Better_Paradigm_Identifying_Key_Transitional_Problems

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lucio_Munoz/contributions

Article Substituting The More is Better Paradigm for The Less is Bet...

Dear Lucio, you have brought in the most daunting challenge of 21st  century- the climate change and poverty nexus conundrum.  

At the outset, poverty as a multidimensional concept in its various forms ( income poverty, energy poverty, food poverty, psychological poverty etc) result from combination of both climatic and non climatic forces. Surely, climate change has and continue to exacerbate the already poor and vulnerable sections of the society forcing them to adopt economically and environmentally  unsustainable practices /behaviors to meet their immediate survival needs - the vicious cycles. Yet the existing global response strategy dominated by long- term mitigation has failed to give equal priority for sustainable adaptation as an urgent action for tacking the poverty and vulnerability. Despite black carbon and other short-lived cimate pollutants (SLCPs) being the second strongest contributor to global warming,  both climate and air pollution policies are treated separately ( rather than integrating them) in the existing climate agreements -resulting in limited impact of CO2 mitigation.    

In contrast, existing national adaptation plan of actions ( NAPA) developed so far in many countries are beset with inadequate fund  and are largely sectoral in nature resulting in maladaptation practice in many cases .  Hence the existing faulty and imbalanced approach driven by the mistrust ( due to different priority)  between the developed and developing countries  is not going solve this climate change -poverty conundrum.  Even the upcoming SDG as a non-binding, voluntary agreement to be applied universally to all countries ( unlike MDG targeted to developing countries)   will have to face serious implementation challenge under the existing global governance  structure and approach.                        

Dear Bikash, all this uncordination between countries and between issues, locally and globally it is possible because of  the addttive thinking under which sustainable development approaches are expected to work....creating sustainability gaps between goals and issues when simplifying assumptions are made to address them, and this sustainability gaps as maximization takes place in old economic thinking or joint maximization take place within partnership model thinking makes the sustainability gaps even worse and as time this susstainability gaps bring those models or ideas down...constrainting decision making and action more and more and more until...there will be no choice by inclusion, coordination, ...sustainability....

To change this we need a new way of thinking, actually we need the way of thinking we should have been since Adam Smith that of sustainabililty markets.... Little by little I hope I will provide the tools that will aid to put pressure on those who before thought they could still live in the past given their models allows them to continute the same ideas even when they know there has been or there will be a paradigm shift...I trust that once the road is clear...sustainability will stop being a scary concept and we can stop using one issue to help the other issue without a two ways beneficial vision....

I am currently about to finish a follow up paper to the call for formally recognizing that the economic man/traditional market theory has been bought down not by both of the two sustainability gaps it created, the social and environmental  sustainability gaps, but by only oine...the environmentalt sustainabilty gap, leading to the death of Adam Smith's world and to a paradigm shift from pure economics to eco-economics in previously capitalist countries....But we can not forget that the same issues can be found in newly red capitalist countries after the paradigm shift from red socialism to socially friendly capitalism that took place after the fall of Karl Marx's woird and the collapse of the soviet bloc structure...

Bellow I share the abstract and the conclusion of this new article I will share in the coming weeks:

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Adam Smith and Karl Marx: Two Great Thinkers, Two Great Simplification Failures.

By

Lucio Muñoz

* Independent Qualitative Comparative Researcher / Consultant, Vancouver, BC, Canada Email: [email protected]

Abstract

          Adam Smith stated the foundations of modern economics by simplifying reality dramatically in order to make development an economy only driven process.  Karl Marx advanced the foundations of red socialism by simplifying really heavily too in order to state development as a society only driven model.  And this set the stage for a long and well-known clash of paradigms, bare capitalism vrs red socialism.   Surprisingly, their oversimplification of reality have led to paradigm death and paradigm shift in both cases because of the sustainability gaps they created .  First the world of Karl Marx came crashing down when the Soviet Union fell apart for avoiding to close its economic sustainability gap opening the doors for socio-economic models like that of China.   Recently the model of Adam Smith, the traditional market, fell out of grace when the Bruntland commission called in 1987 for it to be fixed through sustainable development means to incorporate social and environmental concerns, opening the doors for eco-economic models or green economy market models as the one being championed today by international organizations and western countries.  Among the goals of this paper is to highlight the sustainability gaps that have led to demise  of the world views of of  these two once great thinkers.

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Conclusions

          First, it was highlighted that like DNA markers the failure of Adam Smith’s and Carl Marx’s models was encrusted in the sustainability gaps created by their simplifications of realities.  As time passed, the economic sustainability gap brought down Karl Marx’s world  and the whole red socialist system with it opening the door for the paradigm shift towards socio-economic capitalism.  Capitalist countries were very loud about this.  Second, it was shown that albeit the social sustainability gap and/or environmental sustainability gap were capable of bringing down the world of Adam Smith, it was only the environmental sustainability gap that did it leading to the current paradigm shift, the eco-economic model or green market model.  Capitalist countries have been very quiet about this.

          Third, it was indicated that the above means that now in the old pure capitalist countries we have a green economic man instead of the old economic man ruling the markets; and in new socio-capitalist countries we have a red economic man instead of the red man driving development programs.   Fourth, it was stressed that had Karl Marx proposed a socially friendly capitalist system, the social sustainability gap would had brought down the pure capitalist system and socially friendly capitalism would have prevailed.  And finally, it was pointed out that had Adam Smith proposed a sustainability market model, the world of Karl Marx would have had no reason to exist.

Dear friends I am sharing here my most recent publications as food for thoughts:

Adam Smith and Karl Marx Under the Sustainability Eye: Pointing Out and Comparing the Sustainability Gaps Behind these Two Great Simplification Failures

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299885202_Adam_Smith_and_Karl_Marx_Under_the_Sustainability_Eye_Pointing_Out_and_Comparing_the_Sustainability_Gaps_Behind_these_Two_Great_Simplification_Failures

Understanding the Death and Paradigm Shift of Adam Smith’s model: Was Going Green the Only Option? If not, Is This Option the Most Sustainable One?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299882613_Understanding_the_Death_and_Paradigm_Shift_of_Adam_Smith%27s_model_Was_Going_Green_the_Only_Option_If_not_Is_This_Option_the_Most_Sustainable_One

The Unintended Consequences of Paradigm Death and Shift: Was the Arrow Impossibility Theorem Left Behind?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299879934_The_Unintended_Consequences_of_Paradigm_Death_and_Shift_Was_the_Arrow_Impossibility_Theorem_Left_Behind

Paradigm Evolution and Sustainability Thinking: Using a Sustainability Inversegram to State Paradigm Death and Shift Expectations under Win-Win and No Win-Win Situations

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298353982_Paradigm_Evolution_and_Sustainability_Thinking_Using_a_Sustainability_Inversegram_to_State_Paradigm_Death_and_Shift_Expectations_under_Win-Win_and_No_Win-Win_Situations

Article Adam Smith and Karl Marx Under the Sustainability Eye: Point...

Article Understanding the Death and Paradigm Shift of Adam Smith’s m...

Article The Unintended Consequences of Paradigm Death and Shift: Was...

Data Paradigm Evolution and Sustainability Thinking: Using a Sust...

Dear friends, here sharing my most recent article which I trust you may find interesting in terms of food for thoughts:

If Going From Free Markets to Non-Free Markets is the Way to Go: Does This Means the End of Rational Decision Making Thinking or Is This Just a Temporary Block of a Perfect Paradigm Shift to Green Markets?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312092336_If_Going_From_Free_Markets_to_Non-Free_Markets_is_the_Way_to_Go_Does_This_Means_the_End_of_Rational_Decision_Making_Thinking_or_Is_This_Just_a_Temporary_Block_of_a_Perfect_Paradigm_Shift_to_Green_Mark

Article If Going From Free Markets to Non-Free Markets is the Way to...