Assessment of universal access to basic needs

This report explores how ensuring Decent Living Standards (DLS) for all — covering essential services like nutrition, housing, transport, and health — affects global energy use and climate mitigation. We use the DESIRE model with bottom-up country-level information on energy requirements for DLS and integrate it with the MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM framework. We assess energy needs, gaps, and related emissions for ten global regions based on an assessment of 172 countries.

In this report, we compare two scenarios to show initial results. A "Reference" SSP2-based mitigation pathway and a "Minimum Needs" (MN) scenario that starts from this Reference but additionally closes energy deprivation by 2040 while remaining within the same carbon budget of 520 GtCO2 between 2025 and 2100.

Achieving DLS for all by 2040 increases global energy demand modestly (4% in 2030, 9% in 2040, 5% in 2050) but significantly increases in Sub-Saharan Africa (35% in 2030, 68% in 2040, 31% in 2050), the region with the highest DLS deprivation.

Staying within the same emissions budget remains manageable through efficiency gains and clean energy transitions. Emissions associated with DLS provisioning are projected to drop in all regions due to cleaner - and eventually net-negative - energy systems. While the MN scenario leads to slightly higher short-term emissions in developing regions, these are offset by deeper reductions or carbon removal in wealthier regions. Coal phase-outs timing in developing regions is not delayed.

This analysis illustrates a pathway of addressing global climate targets and human development simultaneously, when inequality and climate policy are designed together.