Energy Poverty Eradication and Climate Resilient Livelihoods through Win-Win Solutions

Climate change does not only pose increasing risks to local livelihoods and economies, but also provides a large array of opportunities for social innovation and international collaboration. Any attempt at limiting global warming below will require new forms of green businesses and of economic collaboration. This is especially the case in rural and poor areas of the world where there is a major potential for societal-climatic positive transformations.

This policy brief, Energy Poverty Eradication and Climate Resilient Livelihoods through Win-Win Solutions, finds that, despite some identified barriers, many supporting measures can already be implemented fast to accelerate the deployment of win-win solutions in rural and poor contexts of the world. In the absence of strong global governance institutions, and of clear long-term policy and economic signals able to tackle with the climate challenge, the role of non-state, private actors and ‘glocal’ networks is crucial in delivering the required transformations at community and regional levels. In the case of eradicating energy poverty and building climate resilient livelihood many trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation can be overcome and the overall costs of climate action can be reduced by aligning decarbonisation policies and incentives to broader sustainable development goals.