With climate change intensifying and billions of people still lacking basic necessities, addressing both challenges simultaneously is not only possible but essential. New research highlights that meeting global climate targets while ensuring decent living standards for all can be achieved, provided that emissions reductions are implemented quickly and decisively.
The study, led by Jarmo Kikstra, a researcher in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program, and published in Environmental Research Letters, examines energy scenarios that align with the aims of both the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. The authors analyzed whether these scenarios provide sufficient energy for all people globally to enjoy essential services - such as heating and cooling homes, clean cooking, transportation, education, and healthcare.
"Our goal is to understand what it takes to eliminate extreme poverty while also advancing climate action," explains Kikstra. "We're not just talking about lifting people out of extreme poverty; we're looking at futures with high development ambition, ensuring decent living standards as a minimum for everyone worldwide."
The researchers used the new DESIRE model to compare energy scenarios that prioritize sustainable development to those that continue past trends. One striking finding is that sustainable development scenarios significantly reduce the number of people consuming less than the minimum required energy for basic needs. Under these scenarios, the number of people that do not have enough energy to meet their basic household needs is projected to decrease by over 90% - a much faster rate of progress than what would be achieved by continuing current trends.
Moreover, the research highlights that the emissions required to support decent living standards are much smaller than total emissions.
"Our findings challenge the notion that eradicating poverty and protecting the planet are conflicting goals. In fact, the energy needed to ensure basic human dignity is small compared to what is currently consumed globally," Kikstra adds. "Even so, such a sustainable development trajectory means growth rates in low-income countries much higher than we have seen. It requires appropriate development efforts and international support."
Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group Leader and study coauthor, Shonali Pachauri, points out that it is important to capture three different ways to make sure that everyone can get sufficient resources - growth, efficiency, and reducing inequality.
"Not only should there be more services where they are needed, it is also very important to improve how services are provided, and to make sure that resources are not wasted, but allocated to those who need them," she notes.
"Our study is the first to connect detailed studies on energy needs to global integrated modeling for emissions reductions. If done well, future energy needs could be about at least a third lower, while emissions are brought to zero," adds study coauthor Bas van Ruijven, who leads the Sustainable Service Systems Research Group at IIASA.
The authors emphasize the importance of combining development and climate action, but note that, if effective climate policies are not implemented, even the bare minimum of meeting basic needs would not be possible without surpassing the Paris Agreement's limits.
One of the study's key takeaways is that only around one-third of global energy would be required to support decent living standards, while the remaining two-thirds of energy consumption is used for purposes beyond fulfilling basic needs. In such a future, which could be less than two decades away, more than half of the global population - including in low-income countries - achieves living standards more than twice as high as the minimum decent living standards benchmark for the buildings sector. This demonstrates that a just and livable future for all is possible while meeting climate targets.
"Providing the services that people need worldwide is unlikely to destroy the planet - at least not from an energy perspective. Meeting climate objectives and ensuring decent living for all is within our reach, but it requires immediate and decisive action to reduce emissions," Kikstra concludes.
Reference
Kikstra, J.S., Daioglou, V., Min, J., Sferra, F., Soergel, B., Kriegler, E., Lee, H., Mastrucci, A., Pachauri, S., Rao, N., Rauner, S., van Vuuren, D., Riahi, K., van Ruijven, B., Rogelj, J. (2025). Closing decent living gaps in energy and emissions scenarios: introducing DESIRE. Environmental Research Letters DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/adc3ad(link is external)
