Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-1 (section)

=== 1.4.6 Equity and Fairness ===

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Equity and fairness can serve as both drivers and barriers to climate mitigation at different scales of governance. Literature regularly highlights equity and justice issues as critical components in local politics and international diplomacy regarding all SDGs, such as goals for no poverty, zero hunger, gender equality, affordable clean energy, reducing inequality, but also for climate action (SDG 13) ( [[#Marmot--2018|Marmot and Bell 2018]] ; [[#Spijkers--2018|Spijkers 2018]] ). Equity issues help explain why it has proved hard to reach more substantive global agreements, as it is hard to agree on a level of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation (or emissions) and how to distribute mitigation efforts among countries ( [[#Kverndokk--2018|Kverndokk 2018]] ) for several reasons. First, an optimal trade-off between mitigation costs and damage costs of climate change depends on ethical considerations, and simulations from integrated assessment models using different ethical parameters producing different optimal mitigation paths ( [[#IPCC--2018b|IPCC 2018b]] ) ( [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-3#3.6.1|Section 3.6.1]] .2). Second, treaties that are considered unfair may be hard to implement ( [[#Klinsky--2017|Klinsky et al. 2017]] ; [[#Liu--2017|Liu et al. 2017]] ). Lessons from experimental economics show that people may not accept a distribution that is considered unfair, even if there is a cost of not accepting ( [[#Gampfer--2014|Gampfer 2014]] ). As equity issues are important for reaching deep decarbonisation, the transition towards sustainable development ( [[#Evans--2016|Evans and Phelan 2016]] ; [[#Heffron--2018|Heffron and McCauley 2018]] ; [[#Okereke--2018|Okereke 2018]] ) depends on taking equity seriously in climate policies and international negotiations ( [[#Okereke--2016|Okereke and Coventry 2016]] ; [[#Klinsky--2017|Klinsky et al. 2017]] ; [[#Martinez--2019|Martinez et al. 2019]] ).

Climate change and climate policies affect countries and people differently. Low-income countries tend to be more dependent on primary industries (agriculture and fisheries, etc.) than richer countries, and their infrastructure may be less robust to tackle more severe weather conditions. Within a country, the burdens may not be equally distributed either, due to policy measures implemented and from differences in vulnerability and adaptive capacity following from e.g. income and wealth distribution, race and gender. For instance, unequal social structures can result in women being more vulnerable to the effects of climate change compared to men, especially in poor countries ( [[#Arora-Jonsson--2011|Arora-Jonsson 2011]] ; [[#Jost--2016|Jost et al. 2016]] ; [[#Rao--2019|Rao et al. 2019]] ). Costs of mitigation also differ across countries. Studies show there are large disparities of economic impacts of NDCs across regions, and also between relatively similar countries when it comes to the level of development, due to large differences in marginal abatement costs for the emission-reduction goal of NDCs ( [[#Fujimori--2016|Fujimori et al. 2016]] ; [[#Hof--2017|Hof et al. 2017]] ; [[#Akimoto--2018|Akimoto et al. 2018]] ; Evans &amp; Gabbatiss 2019). Equalising the burdens from climate policies may give more support for mitigation policies ( [[#Maestre-Andrés--2019|Maestre-Andrés et al. 2019]] ).

Taking equity into account in designing an international climate agreement is complicated as there is no single universally accepted equity criterion, and countries may strategically choose a criterion that favours them ( [[#Lange--2007|Lange et al. 2007]] , 2010). Still, several studies analyse the consequences of different social preferences in designing climate agreements, such as, for instance, inequality aversion, sovereignty and altruism (Anthoff et al. 2010; [[#Kverndokk--2014|Kverndokk et al. 2014]] ).

International transfers from rich to poor countries to support mitigation and adaptation activities may help with equalising burdens, as agreed upon in the [[#UNFCCC--1992|UNFCCC (1992)]] (Chapters 14 and 15), such that they may be motivated by strategic as well as equity reasons ( [[#Kverndokk--2018|Kverndokk 2018]] ) ( [[#1.4.4|Section 1.4.4]] ).

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