Moyer, J. D., Pirzadeh, A., Irfan, M., Solórzano, J. R., Stone, B. A., Xiong, Y., Hanna, T., & Hughes, B. B. (2023, October 2). How many people will live in poverty because of climate change? A macro-level projection analysis to 2070. Climatic Change 176(13). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03611-3.

Fossil fuel-based economic development both causes climate change and contributes to poverty alleviation, creating tensions across societal efforts to maintain growth, limit climate damage, and improve human development. While many studies explore key aspects of this dilemma, few direct attention to the pathways from climate change through socioeconomic development to the future of poverty. We build on projections of global temperature change (representative concentration pathways) and country-specific economic development (economic growth and income distribution across the shared socioeconomic pathways) to model how climate change may affect future poverty with the International Futures (IFs) model, projecting poverty across income thresholds for 175 countries through 2070. Central tendency scenarios with climate effects compared with scenarios that do not model climate change show that climate change-attributable extreme poverty will grow to 25 million people by 2030 (range: 18 to 30), 40 million by 2050 (range: 9 to 78), and 32 million by 2070 (range: 4 to 130) though overall levels of global poverty decline. If climatic tipping points are passed, the climate-attributable extreme poverty grows to 57 million people by 2030 (range: 40–72), 78 million by 2050 (range: 18–193), and 56 million by 2070 (range: 7–306). To mitigate baseline effects of climate change on extreme poverty, an improvement of global income inequality of 10% is required (range: 5–15%).

Burgess, M.G., Langendorf, R.E., Moyer, J.D. et al. (2023, June 22). Multidecadal dynamics project slow 21st-century economic growth and income convergence. Commun Earth Environ 4(220). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00874-7.

Future economic growth will affect societal well-being and the environment, but is uncertain. We describe a multidecadal pattern of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth rising, then declining, as regions become richer. An empirically fitted differential-equation model and an integrated assessment model—International Futures—accounting for this pattern both predict 21st-century economic outlooks with slow growth and income convergence compared to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, similar to SSP4 (“Inequality”). For World Bank income groups, the differential-equation model could have produced, from 1980, consistent projections of 2100 GDP per capita, and more accurate predictions of 2010s growth rates than the International Monetary Fund’s short-term forecasts. Both forecasts were positively biased for the low-income group. SSP4 might therefore represent a best-case—not worst-case—scenario for 21st-century economic growth and income convergence. International Futures projects high poverty and population growth, and moderate energy demands and carbon dioxide emissions, within the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway range.

By: Moyer, J. D. (2023a). Blessed are the peacemakers: The future burden of intrastate conflict on poverty. World Development, 165, 106188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106188

A new publication uses the International Futures Platform to forecast 12 scenarios that forecast the number of people in 179 countries who will live in poverty due to intrastate conflict in 2030, 2050 and 2070. Findings show that a baseline conflict scenario leads to an additional 148.2 million people living in extreme poverty due to conflict by 2030 compared with a scenario where conflict is eliminated starting in 2022. These conflict-attributable poor represent 20.1% of the population in extreme poverty at that time, with the majority living in South Asia followed by Africa. By 2050 the population living in conflict-attributable poverty increases to 164.9 million, representing 32.7% of the total extremely poor population at that time with the majority living in Africa.

Full Citation: Verhagen, W., Meziere, M. E., Bohl, D. K., Howe, B., & Moyer, J. (2010). Guinea-Bissau: Exploring Alternative Futures of Development - Report 2. Pardee Center for International Futures. https://korbel.du.edu/pardee/Guinea-Bissau/en

UNDP Guinea Bissau & Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau and Denver, USA. Access translations:

French Version
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Rafa, Mickey and Kabandula, Abigail and Bohl, David and Yang, Vivian and Kwasi, Stellah and Hanna, Taylor and Moyer, Jonathan D., Advancing Development in Uganda: Evaluating Policy Choices and Their Long-Term Impact (March 25, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4066838

The policy, programming, and donor communities in Uganda face a range of competing priorities that will shape future patterns of development. Various factors will determine which policies should be prioritized, including long-term patterns of human, social and environmental development. This report is motivated by the desire to better understand the future of development in Uganda to support these decision-makers as they choose among various policy options in a future characterized by uncertainty.

Verhagen, W., Pereira, C. C., Bohl, D. K., Meziere, M. E., Irfan, M. T., Moyer J. M. (2022). "Guinea-Bissau: Exploring Alternative Futures of Development. Report 1: Economic and human development trends to 2040."

UNDP Guinea Bissau & Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau and Denver, USA.

Access translations:

• French version
• Portuguese version

Azcona, G. & Bhatt, A. (2022). Poverty deepens for women and girls, according to latest projections. UN Women.

New projections of global poverty by UN Women, UNDP and the Pardee Center for International Futures estimate that, globally, 388 million women and girls will be living in extreme poverty in 2022 (compared to 372 million men and boys). But the outlook could be far worse. In a “high-damage” scenario, this number could balloon to 446 million (427 million for men and boys).

Rafa, Mickey, Singumbe Muyeba, Jonathan Moyer, and Taylor Hanna. 2021.

"The future of Zambian poverty to 2060: assessing national and sub-national trends across scenarios." Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, University of Denver. Denver, CO. Report for Chronic Poverty Advisory Network.

Verhagen, W., Bohl, D.K., Cilliers, J., Hughes, B.B., Kwasi, S., McNeil, K., Oosthuizen, M., Picci, L., Yutang Xiong, M., and Moyer, J.D. (2021). "Analysing long-term socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 across diverse African contexts."

Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures. Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs. Denver: Report for UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa.

Moyer, Jonathan D., Abigail Kabandula, David K. Bohl, Vivian Yang, Kaylin McNeil, Yutang Xiong, Ibrahim Mayaki, Martin Bwalya, George Murumba, and Bernice Mclean. 2021.

"COVID-19: The Future of African Development Systems." Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, University of Denver. Denver, CO. Report with African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD).