Poverty and Climate Change in Developed Nations: new models, new agendas

Ecological issues have stalked policies, research projects and debates about poverty for many years, especially under the headings of transport, housing, energy and food.  Yet until recently key environmentalist arguments had been missing from mainstream debates, within which the main background assumption was (and often remains) that economic growth plus redistribution will solve the problems of poverty.  Slowly, however, the environmentalist argument that we need to conceive new forms of socioeconomic development and interaction have been gaining ground.  ‘Fuel poverty’, for instance, represents an intersection of traditional concerns with an increasing recognition that carbon-intensive forms of energy use, particularly when compounded by housing stock which is energy-inefficient, are unsustainable and unaffordable.

This paper summarises a work-in-progress (Poverty and Global Warming: the implications for developed nations, due for publication by Policy Press in 2014) which attempts to do three things.  Firstly, provide a conceptual and theoretical framework that firmly attaches poverty research to environmental issues and priorities, contextualizing each in terms of the other.  This analytical model draws from debates concerning resources, capabilities, space and time.  Secondly, it identifies key ‘socionatural resources’ (land, food, energy, water, air) and applies the above model to each of these, integrating the latest research and evidence.  Finally, it considers where this might take debates about and research into social policies and welfare reform in the coming years.