Maximizing co-benefits: exploring opportunities to strengthen equality and poverty reduction through adaptation to climate change

The implications extend beyond a response to climate change but go the heart of development as a whole. The underlying ideal of the Millennium Declaration (UN, 2000) is that growth should be balanced and influenced by poverty reduction, equality and environmentally sustainable imperatives. How countries fuel growth (and not just in
structural and mechanical terms) determines who will have access to resources, how they will be used in a macro sense, and the sustainability of such actions. This paper is largely exploratory, seeking to identify options and structures rather than define solutions, and it focuses largely on adaptation in the context of national climate-change strategies.