By Joan Martínez-Alie and Beatriz Rodríguez-Labajos
Abstract
Poverty is multidimensional. Economic growth often implies environmental impoverishment and hence diminished options to choose valuable lives. People who are deprived of access to land, clean water and air because of extractive industries or as victims of waste disposal, often complain accordingly. They have lost freedom of choice regardless possible income increases, if they get them at all. We illustrate this with examples of ecological distribution conflicts collected in the EJAtlas. If you get some extra money but lose access to land, water and clean air because extractive industries grab your place and pollute your family, you are poorer in some dimensions than before, and poverty estimates need to take this into account.
Highlights
- Eradicating poverty across the world should start by stopping (environmental) impoverishment.
- Development-related environmental degradation can be linked to impoverishment in terms of loss of freedom and capabilities.
- Global indices assessing multidimensional poverty underreport environmental degradation and related impoverishment.
- Claims in ecological distribution conflicts display multidimensional values that should supplement poverty indices.
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The project ENVJUSTICE has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 695446)