Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-17 (section)

== 17.5 Conclusions ==

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This chapter has been concerned to assess the opportunities and challenges for acceleration ''in the context of sustainable development'' . As such, many of the claims reviewed involve not only increasing the speed of the transition but also ensuring that it is just, equitable and delivers a wider range of environmental and social benefits. A sustainability transition requires removing the underlying drivers of vulnerability and high emissions (quality and depth) while aligning the interests of different communities, regions, sectors, stakeholders and cultures (scale and breadth).

Interest in a sustainability transition has grown steadily over the history of the IPCC and of climate and related policy processes. That interest hit a high point in 2015 with the Paris Agreement and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs. It has continued to remain high as countries have issued NDCs on climate change, VNRs on the SDGs and, in some instances, integrated climate and SDG plans (or similarly themed integrated actions, e.g., circular economy plans). Interest has also gained momentum as local governments, businesses and other stakeholders have followed suit with climate change- or SDG-related plans.

Implementing many of the recent pledges, however, has proved challenging. Part of the challenge is a need to address everything from public policies and prevailing technologies to individual lifestyles and social norms, to governance arrangements and institutions with associated political economy implications. These factors can lock-in development pathways and prevent transitions from gathering the momentum needed for large-scale transformations of socio-economic systems. Another consideration is that transition pathways are likely to vary across and within countries due to different development levels, starting points, differential vulnerabilities, capacities, agencies, geographies, power dynamics, political economies, ecosystems and other contextual factors.

Even with this diversity, prominent lines of economic, institutional, psychological and systems thinking have reflected on interventions that can enable transitions. Because these disciplines often focus on different levels of analysis and draw upon diverse analytical methods and empirical evidence, the recommended interventions also tend to vary. For instance, economic arguments often point to the need for targeted regulation or investments, institutional claims centre on multi-level governance reforms, and psychology encourages participation to change mindsets and social norms. Systems-level perspectives offer a useful frame for bringing together these views, but may not capture the richness and details of them treated separately. Greater inter- and transdisciplinary research is needed to integrate the more focused interventions and show how they work together in a system. Such research will be particularly important for working on the concern running through these studies: strengthening synergies between climate and the broader sustainable development agenda.

National and sub-national, sectoral and cross-sectoral, short- and long-term transition studies have assessed the links between sustainable development and mitigation policies and synergies and the trade-offs between the different policy domains. Some general conclusions can be drawn on synergies and trade-offs, despite the actual impacts of policy implementation depending on scale, context and the development starting point.

From a cross-sectoral perspective, it can be concluded that the AFOLU sector offers many low-cost mitigation options with synergetic SDG impacts, which, however, can also create trade-offs between land use for food, energy, forest and biodiversity. Some options can help to mitigate such trade-offs, like agricultural practices, forest conservation and soil carbon sequestration. Lifestyle changes, including dietary changes and reduced food waste, could jointly support the SDGs and mitigation. Industry also offers several mitigation options with SDG synergies, for example, related to energy efficiency and the circular economy. Some of the renewable-energy options in industry could indicate some trade-offs in relation to land use, with implications for food- and water security and costs. Cities provide a promising basis for implementing mitigation with SDG synergies, particularly if urban planning, transportation, infrastructure and settlements are coordinated jointly. Similarly, studies of the building sector have identified many synergies between the SDGs and mitigation, but there are issues related to the costs of new technologies. Also, in relation to households and buildings, important equity issues emerge due to the ability of low-income groups to afford the introduction of new technologies. Altogether these cross-sectoral conclusions create a need for policies to address both synergies and trade-offs, as well as for coordination between different sectoral domains. Context-specific assessments of synergies and trade-offs are here important, as is sharing the benefits and costs associated with mitigation policies.

Several opportunities for creating SDG synergies and avoiding trade-offs have also been identified in relation to integrated adaptation and mitigation policies. The AFOLU sector has a large potential for integrating adaptation and mitigation policies related to agriculture, bioenergy crops, forestry and water use. As was concluded for mitigation options, integrated adaptation and mitigation policies also entail the risks of creating trade-offs in relation to food, water, energy access and biodiversity. There are several potentially strong links between climate change adaptation in industry and climate change adaptation more generally. Various supply chains can be affected by climate change, and mitigation options related to energy and water supply can be disrupted by climate events, implying that great benefits may come from integrating adaptation in industrial planning efforts. Adaptation options in industry can imply increasing the demand for packaging materials such as plastics and for access to refrigeration, which are also major sources of GHG emissions, which then would require further mitigation options. Mitigation and the co-benefits of adaptation in urban areas in relation to air quality, health, green jobs and equality issues can in most cases be synergetic and can also support the SDGs. One exception are compact cities, with their trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation because decreasing urban sprawl can increase the risks of flooding and heat stress. Detailed mapping of mitigation and adaptation in urban areas shows that there are many, very close interactions between the two policy domains and that coordinated governance across sectors is therefore called for.

Meeting the ambitions of the Paris Agreement will require phasing out fossil fuels from energy systems, which is technically possible and is estimated to be relatively low in cost. However, studies also show that replacing fossil fuels with renewables can have major synergies and trade-offs with a broader agenda of sustainable development if a balance is established in relation to land use, food security and job creation ( [[#McCollum--2018|McCollum et al. 2018]] ). Furthermore, the transition to low-emission pathways will require policy efforts that also address the emissions locked-in to existing infrastructure, like power plants, factories, cargo ships and other infrastructure already in use: for example, today coal-fired power plants account for 30% of all energy-related emissions. Thus, even though the transition away from fossil fuels is desirable and technically feasible, it is still largely constrained by existing fossil fuel-based infrastructure and the existence of stranded investments. The ‘committed’ emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure may consume all the remaining carbon budget in the 1.5°C scenario or two thirds of the carbon budget in the 2°C scenario.

Stranded hydrocarbon assets, including hydrocarbon resources and the infrastructure from which they are produced, and investments made in exploration and production activities, are likely to become unusable, lose value or may end up as liabilities before the end of the anticipated economic lifetime. This phenomenon is rapidly becoming a global reality as social norms change and the pressure to reduce emissions mounts. Energy and other forms of structural inequities are likely to make the transition planning more challenging, especially given stranded assets.

Countries dependent on fossil fuel income will need to forego these revenues to keep well within the Paris Agreement requirements and align with the rapidly growing divestment movement. Climate injustice, energy poverty and COVID-19 have reduced the space and manoeuverability for developing countries to innovate and use surplus funds to procure new and clean technologies. A rising debt burden already hamstrings many. Decisions on how to spend the remaining carbon budget and who has the right to decide on what to do with existing fossil fuels reflect the complexity of the transition and its non-linear character. Given the asymmetrical dimension of energy production, distribution and use, it is likely that stranded assets will have implications for oil-producing countries, especially for early producers who perceive that new-found oil and gas will open doors to new forms of prosperity.

While the transitional drivers are not in place in some developing countries, that is, technology, infrastructure, knowledge, and finance, among others, investing in new forms of renewable energy for the land, energy, or water sectors will see the emergence of a more diversified economy and one less vulnerable to carbon and other exogenous risks. The transition away from fossil fuels will come with hard choices. Still, these choices can enable a sustainable development world and reduce the many asymmetries and injustices inherent in the current system, not least the gaping energy disparities that divide the developed and the developing world.

Equality and justice are central dimensions of transitions in the context of sustainable development. Viewing climate change through the lens of justice requires a focus on the protection of vulnerable populations from the impacts of climate change, addressing the unequal distribution of the costs and consequences of the transitions themselves, including for those whose livelihoods are rooted in fossil fuel-based sectors, and developing more creative and participatory processes for envisioning an equitable decarbonised world. Neglecting issues of justice will have implications for the pace, scale and quality of the transition.

Ultimately, the evidence demonstrates that there is rarely any one single factor promoting or preventing transitions. A constellation of elements come into play, including technological innovations, shifts in markets, social and behavioural dynamics, and governance arrangements. Indeed, transitions require an examination of the role of values, attitudes, beliefs and the structures that shape behaviour, as well as the dynamics of social movements and education at multiple levels. Likewise, technological and social innovation both play an important role in enabling transitions, highlighting the importance of multi-institutional and multi-stakeholder actors building institutional support networks, facilitating collaboration between sectors and actors, and promoting learning and social change. Financial tools and economic instruments are crucial enablers, since many forms of transformational change to energy systems are not possible when financial systems still privilege investing in unsustainable, carbon-intensive sectors. These instruments are deployed within the context of the multi-level governance of climate change, which suggests the importance of complementary policies and institutions that simultaneously integrate across multiple sectors and scales to address the multiple sources of lock-in that are shaping the current carbon-intensive energy system. Systems-oriented approaches, which holistically address the intersections among climate, water and energy (for instance), have significant potential to reveal and help avoid trade-offs, foster experimentation, and deliver a range of co-benefits on the path towards sustainable development.

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