Aymane Eddahmani
Climate change action relies on mandating a reduction in emissions which means that development strategies are faced with an emission budget the world cannot exceed (IPCC, 2018). This introduces a new problem of allocating this budget to different development goals, including poverty eradication. My research will address the following questions: What is the emission intensity of increased income at different economic levels? What is the emission intensity of increased access to basic needs? How do emissions correlate with increased well-being?
This research will focus on South Africa. According to World Bank data, in 2014, over 55% of the South African population lived under the national poverty line making it one of the countries with the most inequality in the world (World Bank Data, 2019). In fact, according to the GINI coefficient, which quantifies income distribution, South Africa has the most unequal distribution of wealth in the world (World Bank Data, 2019). Additionally, South Africa has the highest per capita emissions of any nation in Sub-Saharan Africa at 9.0 metric tons per capita (World Bank Data, 2019). This makes South Africa a unique case for the study of income distribution, access to basic needs, and how they correlate with different environmental and development indicators.