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

=== 1.5.3 Climate Resilient Development ===

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Adaptation and mitigation can reduce climate-related risks. Implementing these two types of climate action together increases their effectiveness by exploiting synergies and reducing trade-offs among them. In addition, implementing adaptation and mitigation as an integral part of development can similarly make all three more effective (Section 18.2.3). The link between climate change and sustainable development has long been recognised and has been assessed in every Working Group II report since AR3. AR5 introduced the concept of climate resilient development to help assess development trajectories that include co-ordinated adaptation and mitigation actions aimed at reducing climate risk.

Building on AR5, this AR6 report expands the focus with increased attention to equity and the processes needed to follow such trajectories. AR6 thus defines '''climate resilient development''' as ‘a process of implementing GHG mitigation and adaptation solutions to support sustainable development for all’ (Section 18.1.1). In AR6 WGII, some chapters have a section dedicated to climate resilient development, emphasising the need for integrative and transformative solutions within a sector or region that address the uneven distribution of climate risks among different groups and geographies, as well as extend the goals of these solutions to more than reducing risk, such as in improving social, economic and ecological outcomes (Sections 2.6.7; 4.1; 5.14.4; 6.4.8; 7.4.3.5; 7.4.5; 10.6; 11.8; 15.7; 17.6; Boxes 4.7; 13.3; 8.10). Multiple chapters also employ the concept of climate resilient development to identify and balance trade-offs and make progress on achieving the SDGs (Sections 6.1.3; 7.4.5; 10.6; 13.11; 15.7; 16.6.4.3; Box 4.7; Chapter 18).

Climate resilient development requires large and equitable changes in human and natural systems. As noted in Section 1.5.1, the SR1.5 finds that four transitions in socioeconomic systems—energy, land and ecosystems, urban and infrastructure, and industrial—must occur at large scale and rapid rate in order to achieve climate resilient development. This report notes that transitions of such scale, even when beneficial for many people, can also impose significant adverse impacts on others, in particular on marginal and vulnerable populations (Section 18.1.2). This report identifies a fifth socioeconomic transition, that in societal systems that ‘drive innovation, preferences for alternative patterns of consumption and development, and the power relationships among different actors that engage in climate resilient development (Section 18.1.4). Such societal transitions are necessary to ensure the other four transitions unfold at sufficient speed and scale to meet the goals of Paris and the SDGs, as well as to ensure equity in these transitions.

Introduced in the WGII AR5 (Olsson et al., 2014), and further addressed in SR1.5, climate resilient development pathways are trajectories that strengthen sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty and reduce inequalities, while promoting fair and equitable reductions of GHG emissions, and serve to steer societies towards low-carbon, prosperous and ecologically safe futures. This report defines a '''climate resilient development pathway''' as a trajectory in time reflecting a particular sequence of actions and consequences against a background of autonomous developments leading to a specific future situation (Section 18.1.2). Such a pathway emerges from the spatially and temporally distributed choices of many different actors in government, business, civic organisations and households at the individual, community, national and international levels. As such, there is no single or preferred pathway for climate resilient development and no single best combination of adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development strategies. All pathways involve complex trade-offs and synergies among different actions (Sections 18.1.4; 18.2.2). All pathways are subject to hard-to-predict shocks, both adverse, such as climate disasters, and beneficial, such as new technologies or shifts in public values. The pathway that emerges will represent the results of negotiation, cooperation and competition among actors at many scales, whose differing values and objectives would favour differing trajectories (Section 18.1.4). Individual actors at various scales will determine the mix of adaptation, mitigation and development appropriate for their development context and goals, while also influenced by the desire for their collective actions to become consistent with the global policy goals, such as those in the Paris Agreement and the SDGs (Section 18.1.2). The norms, institutions and power relationships that mediate such choices determine the extent to which the process unfolds consistent with principles of equity and social justice ( ''high confidence'' ).

Enabling conditions that can accelerate climate resilient development include governance, finance, economy, and science, technology and information (Sections 18.4.2; 18.9.2). The pursuit of equity and justice are both an enabler and an outcome of climate resilient development (Section 18.1.4). Climate resilient development involves a process of action, learning and response (Section 1.5.2), so the capability for such monitoring and iterative risk management also represents an important enabling condition (Section 18.1.4.2). Governments have an important role to play in expanding the solution space, often focusing on technology, policy and finance. Expanding the solution space also requires a broader set of actors. Chapter 18 and other chapters in this report use the climate resilient development concept to highlight the role of citizens, civil society, knowledge institutions, media, investors and businesses, and the importance of expanding the arenas of engagement in which they interact.

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