Smart policies for sustainability

Addressing energy access, however, is only a first step in combating energy poverty. The Decent Living Energy project goes beyond energy access and aims to quantify the energy needs and related climate change impacts of eradicating poverty and providing decent living standards to all.

Under the project, ENE researchers clearly defined for the first time the material requirements needed for human wellbeing. These include things in the home, such as food and cooking equipment, but also extend to societal level, including the infrastructure needed, such as roads. The definition helps policymakers set fair wages and quantify environmental impact [3].

To understand how eliminating poverty will affect energy use and GHG emissions, researchers also examined how household consumption and energy use increases with rising income.

One study examined what makes people more likely to own household technologies like washing machines, which use a lot of electricity. Examining data from IIASA member countries Brazil, India, and South Africa, they found that the appliances people buy depend not only on their income, but also factors such as race, culture, and wealth in terms of assets like cars, which can secure loans when income alone cannot [4]. A second analysis, using carbon footprinting for Brazilian and Indian households, revealed that the amount of energy used through consumption is largely constant across income groups. This challenges conventional wisdom that poverty eradication would cause a large increase in emissions [5].

Finally, the team investigated how living standards rise with economic growth. As incomes increase in developing countries, access to amenities such as electricity, clean cooking energy, water, and sanitation also improves but not uniformly, and not as quickly as income growth [6][7]. Access to clean cooking energy and sanitation lagged behind access to electricity and water, a finding which has an outsize impact on the poorest, especially women.