Addressing climate change and improving the well-being of people experiencing extreme poverty—two grand challenges of the 21st century—must occur simultaneously, and ideally, synergistically. Unfortunately, the benefits of addressing climate change in ways that simultaneously improve the human well-being of people living in extreme poverty are commonly overlooked—despite their promise to yield substantial socioeconomic, health, equity, ecological, and biodiversity gains.
Launched in early 2021, Drawdown Lift works to deepen collective understanding of the links between climate change solutions and poverty alleviation, particularly in low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The Lift team seeks to help address both extreme poverty and climate change by collaboratively identifying, promoting, and advancing solutions designed to catalyze positive, equitable change. Though research in interconnected, overlapping areas of concern—reducing poverty and addressing climate impacts—should go together, work often exists in silos. Drawdown Lift works to break down disciplinary walls and find solutions that can address climate change and extreme poverty and lead to enhanced human well-being around the world. Drawdown Lift works alongside academic researchers, practitioners, and changemakers interested in achieving evidence-based, high-impact poverty alleviation and climate solutions worldwide.
Project Drawdown’s work continues to highlight climate solutions that directly benefit human well-being—including Health and Education, Improved Clean Cookstoves, Indigenous Peoples’ Forest Tenure, Sustainable Intensification for Smallholders, and more. Drawdown Lift spotlights drawdown solutions and explores linkages among these solutions and their potential to improve lives and advance evidence of the nexus among climate mitigation solutions, poverty alleviation, and human well-being.
Drawdown Lift focuses on three key strategies:
-
synthesizing knowledge about—and looking for connections within—existing climate and poverty solutions
-
connecting with key leaders and broad audiences about our findings and “win-win” solutions they reveal
-
encouraging decision-makers to deploy these “win-win” solutions in their global development work
Also core to Drawdown Lift: the practice of amplifying youth voices and the power of communities historically excluded from collaborative research and environmental work. If you are interested in learning more about Drawdown Lift’s work, please contact us.