A new global action plan to eradicate poverty over the next 15 years, known as the Sustainable Development Goals, was adopted at the United Nations on Friday.
But the impacts of global warming - such as worse floods and droughts - could draw as many as 720 million people back into extreme poverty between 2030 and 2050, a report from the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) warned.
"Poverty eradication cannot be maintained without deep cuts from the big GHG (greenhouse gas) emitters," said Ilmi Granoff, one of the report's authors and an expert in green growth.
The study noted that nearly all scenarios outlined by a U.N. climate science panel indicate the global economy must reach zero net emissions before the end of the century to keep average temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The costs of adapting to more extreme weather and rising seas "simply become implausible" beyond that temperature limit, the report warned.
The policies of major-emitting countries - especially industrialized nations - would be incoherent if they supported poverty eradication while failing to shift their own economies towards zero net emissions, it said.
Zero net emissions means not pumping out more carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases into the atmosphere than can be absorbed or offset by reductions elsewhere.
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The researchers said their estimates of how many people climate change could pull back into poverty considered only the most measurable impacts if emissions trends continue toward a temperature rise of 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Those included food prices, child malnutrition and increased droughts.
Bringing in other projected effects of global warming, such as sea-level rise, urban vulnerability to disasters and an increase in airborne diseases, would likely push the number of people set to fall back into poverty much higher than 720 million, they said.
Read more at Rising Emissions Threaten Goal of Poverty-Free World
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