Breaking our carbon chains

nef believes that a Great Transition to a climate-friendly and more equal society can improve life for all. Our work explores how.

Climate change, energy security and resource scarcity are too often seen in purely scientific or economic terms. But these problems prove almost impossible to solve without grasping their social dimensions. Without that context, technocentric approaches can conceal what may have caused the problem, for example a society’s underlying values, behaviour and power structures.

Climate change is the result of lifestyles built on over-consumption, fuelled by powerful, vested economic interests. Meanwhile, the world's poorest people, particularly those living subsistence or near-subsistence lifestyles, find themselves on the ecological frontline: vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Heat waves, rises in sea level, flooding, drought and the spread of unfamiliar diseases are already hitting the poorest first and worst, in rich and poor countries alike.

What we're doing
nef works alongside leading environmental and social justice groups to highlight the threat which climate change poses to the world's poor, as well as developing policies which help people in poverty to adapt to and tackle climate change. nef founded the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, which produces the Up in Smoke reports, and the UK Roundtable on Climate Change and Poverty. The work of both groups suggests that tackling climate change is a big opportunity for resolving entrenched social problems and addressing economic inequalities within and between countries.

nef’s evidence-based work also shows that reducing the environmental impact of over-consuming lifestyles can also improve well-being and reduce inequality. Rapid global warming is uncharted territory for large, sophisticated human societies. Not only do we need a great transition, we need a fast one. Breaking free of our carbon chains has become the greatest, necessary act of escapology for human-kind. nef is working to provide the evidence and ideas that can make it happen.