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Key takeaways from Drawdown Lift’s Climate–Poverty Connections webinar series

by Carissa Patrone Maikuri
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Drawdown Lift recently hosted a two-part webinar series in which 10 global experts explored how technologies and practices that mitigate climate change can contribute to boosting human well-being and alleviating poverty as evidenced in the Climate–Poverty Connections report. Check out these key takeaways:​​​

  • 28 of Project Drawdown’s currently available, financially viable climate solutions not only have proven potential to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but also provide clear co-benefits for human well-being for rural and underserved communities in Africa and South Asia. 
  • This means we have a remarkable opportunity to align strategies, funding, and policies to simultaneously reduce climate threats, alleviate poverty, and boost human well-being. 
  • Investments in low-carbon development must prioritize countries that are first and worst impacted by climate change—particularly low- and middle-income countries. 
  • Human well-being co-benefits from the 28 Project Drawdown climate solutions are particularly strong in the dimensions of Income and Work, Health, Food, Education, Gender Equality, and Energy. 
  • World Bank economists estimate that Improving Agriculture and Agroforestry is 11 times more effective at reducing extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa than investments in other sectors. 
  • Providing Clean Electricity is crucial to improving human well-being: People who live in communities with limited access to electricity also tend to experience high food insecurity, lack access to improved water and sanitation, lack access to income and work, and endure disproportionate health burdens. 
  • Adopting Clean Cooking could prevent more than 22.5 million premature deaths between 2000 and 2100. 
  • Women’s and Indigenous peoples’ secure land tenure are imperative when Protecting and Restoring Ecosystems; more than 1 billion people experiencing extreme poverty depend on forests to meet their basic needs for housing, water, and fuel, as well as their primary source of income.   
  • Fostering Equality, which includes Project Drawdown’s Family Planning and Education solution, encompasses rights-based, voluntary family planning and high-quality education, yields co-benefits for all 12 dimensions in the Drawdown Lift Human Well-being Index, more than any of the other five climate solutions groups analyzed in Drawdown Lift’s new Climate–Poverty Connections report.
  • Family planning—ensuring everyone’s contraceptive needs are met in a way that centers rights and bodily autonomy—is not in itself a climate mitigation strategy. Rather, one outcome of family planning, slower population growth, is a climate solution.

In part one of the webinar series, global experts in climate-smart development, environmental health, clean energy, and natural resource management discussed how climate solutions focused on Improving Agriculture and Agroforestry, Providing Clean Electricity, and Adopting Clean Cooking can contribute to improving human well-being and alleviating poverty and yield substantial socioeconomic, health, equity, and environmental gains.

Presenter: Yusuf Jameel, Research Manager, Drawdown Lift, Project Drawdown 

Moderator: Yolande Wright, Global Director Child Poverty, Climate and Urban, Save the Children

Host: Kristen P. Patterson, Director, Drawdown Lift, Project Drawdown 

Panelists:

Jill Baumgartner, Associate Professor, Institute for Health And Social Policy & Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University 

Ademola Braimoh, Senior Natural Resources Management Specialist, Agriculture Global Practice, World Bank 

Glory Oguegbu, Founder & CEO, Renewable Energy Technology Training Institute (RETTI) and Climate Smart Nigeria

Interpreters: Sabrine Bayar and Manel Khammouma

In part two of the webinar series, global experts in cross-sectoral conservation and health initiatives, climate adaptation, girls’ education, and environmental conservation spoke to how climate solutions that Protect and Restore Ecosystems and Foster Equality can contribute to positive socioeconomic, health, equity, and environmental outcomes.

Presenter: Kristen P. Patterson, Director, Drawdown Lift, Project Drawdown 

Moderator: Cheryl Margoluis, Executive Director, CARE-WWF Alliance   

Host:  Carissa Patrone Maikuri, Program Coordinator, Drawdown Lift, Project Drawdown

Panelists:

Tapas Ranjan Chakraborty, Senior Programme Manager-Climate Change Programme, BRAC- Bangladesh 

Portia Kuffuor, Enterprise Development Manager, CAMFED (Campaign for Female Education) 

Alice Macharia, Vice-President of Africa Programs, the Jane Goodall Institute  

Interpreters: Sabrine Bayar and Manel Khammouma

Chart

More than one-fourth of Project Drawdown’s 93 climate solutions have proven human well-being co-benefits that are particularly relevant for rural under-resourced regions in Africa and South Asia.

Your Turn

Eight things you can do to boost the well-being of people and our planet together today:

  1. Integrate one or more of the 28 climate solutions that address well-being into new areas of your current work
  2. Find a new partner to work with to identify and carry out activities that simultaneously advance solutions that contribute to mitigating climate change and alleviating poverty
  3. Include human well-being programs and indicators when developing climate projects
  4. Bring ideas to donors that include these integrated, innovative ideas on climate and poverty solutions
  5. Support knowledge sharing and exchanges so we can accelerate our learning
  6. Share the video links above with a colleague or friend
  7. Download, read, and share the Climate–Poverty Connections report or fact sheet
  8. Sign up for the Project Drawdown newsletter here.

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If you are a journalist and would like to republish Project Drawdown content, please contact press@drawdown.org.

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