Editing IPCC:AR6/SR15/Chapter-5 (section)

== 5.7 Synthesis and Research Gaps ==

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The assessment in Chapter 5 illustrates that limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is fundamentally connected with achieving sustainable development, poverty eradication and reducing inequalities. It shows that avoided impacts between 1.5°C and 2°C temperature stabilization would make it easier to achieve many aspects of sustainable development, although important risks would remain at 1.5°C (Section 5.2). Synergies between adaptation and mitigation response measures with sustainable development and the SDGs can often be enhanced when attention is paid to well-being and equity while, when unaddressed, poverty and inequalities may be exacerbated (Section 5.3 and 5.4). Climate-resilient development pathways (CRDPs) open up routes towards socially desirable futures that are sustainable and liveable, but concrete evidence reveals complex trade-offs along a continuum of different pathways, highlighting the role of societal values, internal contestations and political dynamics (Section 5.5). The transformations towards sustainable development in a 1.5°C warmer world, in all contexts, involve fundamental societal and systemic changes over time and across scale, and a set of enabling conditions without which the dual goal is difficult if not impossible to achieve (Sections 5.5 and 5.6).

This assessment is supported by growing knowledge on the linkages between a 1.5°C warmer world and different dimensions of sustainable development. However, several gaps in the literature remain:

Limited evidence exists that explicitly examines the real-world implications of a 1.5°C warmer world (and overshoots) as well as avoided impacts between 1.5°C versus 2°C for the SDGs and sustainable development more broadly. Few projections are available for households, livelihoods and communities. And literature on differential localized impacts and their cross-sector interacting and cascading effects with multidimensional patterns of societal vulnerability, poverty and inequalities remains scarce. Hence, caution is needed when global-level conclusions about adaptation and mitigation measures in a 1.5°C warmer world are applied to sustainable development in local, national and regional settings.

Limited literature has systematically evaluated context-specific synergies and trade-offs between and across adaptation and mitigation response measures in 1.5°C-compatible pathways and the SDGs. This hampers the ability to inform decision-making and fair and robust policy packages adapted to different local, regional or national circumstances. More research is required to understand how trade-offs and synergies will intensify or decrease, differentially across geographic regions and time, in a 1.5°C warmer world and as compared to higher temperatures.

Limited availability of interdisciplinary studies also poses a challenge for connecting the socio-economic transformations and the governance aspects of low emissions, climate-resilient transformations. For example, it remains unclear how governance structures enable or hinder different groups of people and countries to negotiate pathway options, values and priorities.

The literature does not demonstrate the existence of 1.5°C-compatible pathways achieving the ‘universal and indivisible’ agenda of the 17 SDGs, and hence does not show whether and how the nature and pace of changes that would be required to meet 1.5°C climate stabilization could be fully synergetic with all the SDGs.

The literature on low emissions and CRDPs in local, regional and national contexts is growing. Yet the lack of standard indicators to monitor such pathways makes it difficult to compare evidence grounded in specific contexts with differential circumstances, and therefore to derive generic lessons on the outcome of decisions on specific indicators. This knowledge gap poses a challenge for connecting local-level visions with global-level trajectories to better understand key conditions for societal and systems transformations that reconcile urgent climate action with well-being for all.

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