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Improving poverty and inequality modelling in climate research

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 857–862 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

As climate change progresses, the risk of adverse impacts on vulnerable populations is growing. As governments seek increased and drastic action, policymakers are likely to seek quantification of climate-change impacts and the consequences of mitigation policies on these populations. Current models used in climate research have a limited ability to represent the poor and vulnerable, or the different dimensions along which they face these risks. Best practices need to be adopted more widely, and new model features that incorporate social heterogeneity and different policy mechanisms need to be developed. Increased collaboration between modellers, economists, and other social scientists could aid these developments.

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Fig. 1: State-of-the-art and future research directions in representing poverty and inequality in models for climate research.

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Acknowledgements

N.R. was supported by the European Research Council Starting Grant agreement no. 637462 (‘DecentLivingEnergy’), K.R. and V.B. were supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 642147 (CD-LINKS), and B.v.R. was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 1243095.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

    Narasimha D. Rao & Keywan Riahi

  2. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA

    Bas J. van Ruijven

  3. Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Bocconi University, Milano, Italy

    Valentina Bosetti

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  1. Narasimha D. Rao
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N.R. and B.v.R. conceptualized, researched and wrote the paper. V.B. and K.R. provided conceptual inputs.

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Correspondence to Narasimha D. Rao.

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Rao, N.D., van Ruijven, B.J., Riahi, K. et al. Improving poverty and inequality modelling in climate research. Nature Clim Change 7, 857–862 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0004-x

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