“Poverty, biodiversity loss, and climate change are interwoven problems with interwoven solutions,” says Project Drawdown senior scientist Paul C. West, first author of a new commentary in the journal One Earth. “In the past there has been a tendency to consider meeting people’s needs to be a side effect of efforts to protect biodiversity and mitigate climate change. To solve all three, we need to prioritize actions that meet people's needs first, especially in rural areas in low-income countries where poverty and hunger are more widespread. If that doesn't happen, benefits for nature and climate are likely short-lived. And it's just the right thing to do.”
The commentary, “A People-First Approach to Achieving Global Climate and Nature Goals,” was authored by 14 experts from Project Drawdown and other organizations in Bangladesh, Canada, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Senegal, Singapore, and the United States. It notes that current approaches to addressing the world’s most pressing issues tend to focus on achieving biodiversity and climate goals, treating human well-being almost as an aside. Yet those efforts are failing: none of the Sustainable Development Goals the United Nations adopted in 2015 are on track, a million species face extinction, and climate change is only getting worse.
To change that trajectory, the authors propose adopting a “people first approach”: Identify technologies and practices that can gain traction in all three domains, then focus on those that meet people’s needs quickly while the benefits to nature and climate accrue. Doing so, they say, will widen the base of support for proposed initiatives, create action within enduring impact, and ultimately maximize benefit and minimize downsides across all three spheres.
Examples include installing village-scale solar power projects, which enhances quality of life while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss due to deforestation; protecting communities that protect intact ecosystems, which preserves habitat and carbon storage capacity; and protecting communities’ ability to harvest food by protecting coastal mangrove ecosystems, which achieves similar goals to forest protection.
Prioritizing human well-being can be even more effective, the authors note, if attention is paid to where as well as what action can be most impactful. “Understanding where needs are highest and where solutions can be most effective can be used to identify ‘hot spots’ or ‘leverage points’ to guide action and accelerate progress,” they write.
“By designing individual projects to meet people’s needs and prioritizing those at the nexus, decision-makers and funders can start to address climate change and biodiversity loss in more enduring and impactful ways that don’t jeopardize human well-being, and therefore, their own success.”
About Project Drawdown
Project Drawdown is the world’s leading guide to science-based climate solutions. Our mission is to drive meaningful climate action around the world. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Project Drawdown is funded by individual and institutional donations.
