The forecast for poverty: A review of the evidence

Abstract

Abstract: Given the complexities involved in analyzing the impacts of climate change on poverty, different approaches may be helpful. One is to use economywide growth models that incorporate consistent climate-change scenarios to show how climate change might affect the path of poverty over the next decades. Another approach is to learn about sector-specific channels (such as agricultural productivity) through which longer-term climate change affects poverty, the size of such impacts, the potential heterogeneity of those impacts, and the types of policies that may alleviate the adverse impacts. The information generated by this approach is useful in tackling poverty today and in preparing for future adaptation to climate change. Yet another approach is to explore how current climate variability affects poverty to predict the impacts of increased variability on future poverty. This chapter reviews recent studies that have estimated the povertyrelated and distributional impacts of climate change in these complementary directions. Given the multidimensional nature of welfare and the myriad ways in which climate change can affect the different dimensions of household well-being, we limit our discussion to monetary measures