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

== 5.7 Knowledge Gaps ==

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=== Knowledge gap 1: Better metric to measure actual human well-being ===

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Knowledge on climate action that starts with the social practices and how people live in various environments, cultures, contexts and attempts to improve their well-being, is still in its infancy. In models, climate solutions remain supply-side oriented, and evaluated against GDP, without acknowledging the reduction in well-being due to climate impacts. GDP is a poor metric of human well-being, and climate policy evaluation requires better grounding in relation to decent living standards and/or similar benchmarks. Actual solutions will invariably include demand, service provisioning and end use. Literature on how gender, informal economies mostly in developing countries, and solidarity and care frameworks translate into climate action, but also how climate action can improve the life of marginalised groups, remains scarce. The working of economic systems under a well-being-driven rather than GDP-driven paradigm requires better understanding.

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=== Knowledge gap 2: Evaluation of climate implications of the digital economy ===

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The digital economy, as well as shared and circular economy, is emerging as a template for great narratives, hopes and fears. Yet, there are few systematic evaluations of what is already happening and what can govern it towards a better narrative. Research needs to better gauge energy trends for rapidly evolving systems like data centres, increased use of social media and influence of consumption and choices, AI, blockchain; and implications of digital divides among social groups and countries on well-being. Governance decisions on AI, indirectly fostering either climate harming or climate mitigating activities remain unexplored. Better integration of mitigation models and consequential lifecycle analysis is needed for assessing how digitalisation, shared economy and circular economy change material and energy demand.

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=== Knowledge gap 3: Scenario modelling of services ===

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Scenarios start within parameter-rich models carrying more than a decade-long legacy of supply-side technologies that are not always gauged in recent technological developments. Service provisioning systems are not explicitly modelled, and diversity in concepts and patterns of lifestyles rarely considered. A new class of flexible and modular models with focus on services and activities, based on a variety of data sources including big data collected and compiled, is needed. There is scope for more sensitivity analysis on two aspects to better guide further detailed studies on societal response to policy. These aspects need to explore which socio-behavioural aspects and/or organisation changes has the biggest impact on energy/emissions reductions, and on the scale for take-back effects, due to interdependence on inclusion or exclusion of groups of people. Models mostly consider behavioural change free, and don’t account for how savings due to ‘Avoid’ measures may be re-spent. Most quantitatively measurable service indicators, for example passenger-kilometres travelled or tonne-kilometres of freight transport are also inadequate to measure services in the sense of well-being contributions. More research is needed on how to measure, for example, accessibility, social inclusion etc. Otherwise, services will also be poorly represented in scenarios.

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=== Knowledge gap 4: Dynamic interaction between individual, social, and structural drivers of change ===

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Better understanding is required on: (i) more detailed causal mechanisms in the mutual interactions between individual, social, and structural drivers of change and how these vary over time, that is, what is their relative importance in different transition phases; (ii) how narratives associated with specific technologies, group identities, and climate change influence each other and interact over time to enable and constrain mitigation outcomes; (iii) how social media influences the development and impacts of narratives about low-carbon transitions; (iv) the effects of social movements (for climate justice, youth climate activism, fossil fuel divestment, and climate action more generally) on social norms and political change, especially in less developed countries; (v) how existing provisioning systems and social practices destabilise through the weakening of various lock-in mechanisms, and resulting deliberate strategies for accelerating demand-side transitions; (vi) a dynamic understanding of feasibility, which addresses the dynamic mechanisms that lower barriers or drive mitigation options over the barriers; (vii) how shocks like prolonged pandemic impact willingness and capacity to change and their permanency for various social actors and country contexts. The debate on the most powerful leverage points and policies for speeding up change in social and technological systems need to be resolved with more evidence. Discussion on the policy interdependence and implications of end-user and efficiency focused strategies have only just started suggesting an important area for future research.

'''Table 5.7 | Examples of policies to enable ‘Improve’ options'''

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| '''Mitigation option'''

| '''Perceived struggles to overcome'''

| '''Policy to overcome struggles'''

'''(Incentives)'''

|-
| '''Lightweight vehicles, hydrogen cars, electric vehicles, ecodriving'''

| Adequate infrastructure may be absent, speed a part of modern life

| Monetary incentives and traffic regulations favouring electric vehicles; investment in public charging infrastructure; car purchase tax calculated by a combination of weight, CO 2 and NO x emissions ( [[#Haugneland--2015|Haugneland and Kvisle 2015]] ; [[#Globisch--2018|Globisch et al. 2018]] ; [[#Gnann--2018|Gnann et al. 2018]] ; [[#Lieven--2018|Lieven and Rietmann 2018]] ; [[#Rietmann--2019|Rietmann and Lieven 2019]] )

|-
| '''Use low-carbon materials in dwelling design'''

| Manufacturing and R&amp;D costs, recycling processes and aesthetic performance ( [[#Orsini--2019|Orsini and Marrone 2019]] ). Access to secondary materials in the building sector ( [[#Nußholz--2019|Nußholz et al. 2019]] )

| Increasing recycling of construction and demolition waste; incentives must be available to companies in the waste collection and recovery markets to offer recovered material at higher value ( [[#Nußholz--2019|Nußholz et al. 2019]] )

|-
| '''Better insulation and retrofitting'''

| – Policies to advance retrofitting and GHG emission reductions in buildings are laden with high expectations since they are core components of politically ambitious city climate targets ( [[#Haug--2010|Haug et al. 2010]] )

– Building owners’ to implement measures identified in auditing results

– Lack of incentive for building owners to invest in higher efficiency than required norms ( [[#Trencher--2016|Trencher et al. 2016]] )

| Grants and loans through development banks, building and heating system labels, and technical renovation requirements to continuously raise standards ( [[#Ortiz--2019|Ortiz et al. 2019]] ; [[#Sebi--2019|Sebi et al. 2019]] ); disclosure of energy use, financing and technical assistance ( [[#Sebi--2019|Sebi et al. 2019]] )

|-
| '''Widen low-carbon energy access'''

| Access to finance, capacity, robust policies, affordability for poor households for off-grid solutions until recently ( [[#Rolffs--2015|Rolffs et al. 2015]] ; [[#Fuso%20Nerini--2018|Fuso Nerini et al. 2018]] ; [[#Mulugetta--2019|Mulugetta et al. 2019]] )

| Feed-in tariffs and auctions to stimulate investment. Pay-as-you-go end-user financing scheme where customers pay a small up-front fee for the equipment, followed by monthly payments, using mobile payment system ( [[#Rolffs--2015|Rolffs et al. 2015]] ; [[#Yadav--2019|Yadav et al. 2019]] )

|-
| '''Improve illumination-related emission'''

| Lack of supply-side solutions for low-carbon electricity provision

| Building energy codes that set building standards; grants and other incentives for R&amp;D

|-
| '''Improve efficiency of cooking appliances'''

| Reliability of power in many countries is not guaranteed; electricity tariff is high in many countries; cooking appliances are mostly imported using scarce foreign currency

| Driven by a combination of government support for appliance purchases, shifting subsidies from kerosene or LPG to electricity; community-level consultation and awareness campaigns about the hazards associated with indoor air pollution from the use of fuelwood, coal and kerosene, as well as education on the multiple benefits of electric cooking ( [[#Martínez-Gómez--2016|Martínez-Gómez et al. 2016]] ; [[#Yangka--2016|Yangka and Diesendorf 2016]] ; [[#Martínez--2017|Martínez et al. 2017]] ; [[#Gould--2018|Gould and Urpelainen 2018]] ; [[#Dendup--2019|Dendup and Arimura 2019]] ; [[#Pattanayak--2019|Pattanayak et al. 2019]] )

|-
| '''Shift to LED lamps'''

| People spend increasing amounts of time indoors, with heavy dependence on and demand for artificial lighting ( [[#Ding--2020|Ding et al. 2020]] )

| Government incentives, utility incentive ( [[#Bertoldi--2021|Bertoldi et al. 2021]] ). EU bans on directional and non-directional halogen bulbs ( [[#Franceschini--2018|Franceschini et al. 2018]] )

|-
| '''Solar water heating'''

| Dominance of incumbent energy source i.e., electricity; cheap conventional energy; high initial investment costs and long payback ( [[#Joubert--2016|Joubert et al. 2016]] )

| Subsidy for solar heaters ( [[#Li--2013|Li et al. 2013]] ; [[#Bessa--2015|Bessa and Prado 2015]] ; [[#Sgouridis--2016|Sgouridis et al. 2016]] )

|}

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