Climate change is one of the most urgent issues facing humanity. Actions taken to date by the global community to address climate change have not been sufficient: the most recent report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made clear that unless we act urgently to achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it will no longer be possible to avoid catastrophic consequences. Meanwhile, massive floods, devastating wildfires, and record temperatures are endangering the lives of humans and existence of species worldwide.
Sound laws and policies are an important fundamental step to holding people and countries accountable for their climate impact, and for laying the groundwork for mitigation and adaptation. Because climate is inextricably linked to almost every aspect of our lives, it is essential for countries to have laws in place that extend to other social and economic domains that impact and are impacted by climate change.
Climate and Inequality
The urgent need to address the dual threats of climate change and inequality couldn't be clearer. Massive floods, devastating wildfires, and record temperatures are endangering the lives of humans and existence of species worldwide. Meanwhile, nearly 700 million people live in extreme poverty, leaving their households and countries far less prepared to cope with climate change’s most severe impacts. Moreover, climate change is expected to push an additional 132 million people into poverty, disproportionately in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, unless effective actions are taken.
Slowing climate change and advancing educational, health, and economic equality do not need to conflict; rather, we can rapidly accelerate progress on both goals by addressing them together. Prioritizing equality could have a transformative impact for climate and poverty reduction around the world. In particular, there’s long been consensus that addressing gender equality is one of the most powerful steps countries can take to reduce poverty.
Learn more on WORLD’s work on inequality by visiting our sections on Equal Rights and Discrimination, Income, Gender, Education, and Child Marriage
An Ambitious Initiative
WORLD is developing tools that facilitate bringing together all the world’s laws that matter to climate change and adaptation across social, economic, and environmental policy, in a readily accessible way. We are looking for people to join our already-vibrant volunteer community building scrapers for government legislation websites around the world.
We have partnered with Climate Policy Radar on this project: this initiative combines Climate Policy Radar’s expertise on climate laws with WORLD’s long-term commitment to making all social, economic and environmental laws that matter to equality, human health, and well-being easily available to all.
Together, we can:
- Learn about legal change happening in countries in real-time
- Learn what works best by comparing laws across countries
- Accelerate the passage of new laws and policies that lead to effective climate mitigation and adaptation
- Monitor and improve implementation
See our related partnership with Work on Climate.
If you know how to code in Python and are interested in learning more, please contact Magdalena Barrera (mbarrera@ph.ucla.edu).
