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

=== 5.1.1 Sustainable Development, SDGs, Poverty Eradication and Reducing Inequalities ===

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Chapter 1 (see Cross-Chapter Box 4 in Chapter 1) defines sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present and future generations’ through balancing economic, social and environmental considerations, and then introduces the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which sets out 17 ambitious goals for sustainable development for all countries by 2030. These SDGs are: no poverty (SDG 1), zero hunger (SDG 2), good health and well-being (SDG 3), quality education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9), reduced inequalities (SDG 10), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), life below water (SDG 14), life on land (SDG 15), peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG 16) and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17).

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) included extensive discussion of links between climate and sustainable development, especially in Chapter 13 (Olsson et al., 2014) <sup>[[#fn:r1|1]]</sup> and Chapter 20 (Denton et al., 2014) <sup>[[#fn:r2|2]]</sup> in Working Group II and Chapter 4 (Fleurbaey et al., 2014) <sup>[[#fn:r3|3]]</sup> in Working Group III. However, the AR5 preceded the 2015 adoption of the SDGs and the literature that argues for their fundamental links to climate (Wright et al., 2015; Salleh, 2016; von Stechow et al., 2016; Hammill and Price-Kelly, 2017; ICSU, 2017; Maupin, 2017; Gomez-Echeverri, 2018) <sup>[[#fn:r4|4]]</sup> .

The SDGs build on efforts under the UN Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty, hunger, and other deprivations. According to the UN, the Millennium Development Goals were successful in reducing poverty and hunger and improving water security (UN, 2015a) <sup>[[#fn:r5|5]]</sup> . However, critics argued that they failed to address within-country disparities, human rights and key environmental concerns, focused only on developing countries, and had numerous measurement and attribution problems (Langford et al., 2013; Fukuda-Parr et al., 2014) <sup>[[#fn:r6|6]]</sup> . While improvements in water security, slums and health may have reduced some aspects of climate vulnerability, increases in incomes were linked to rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and thus to a trade-off between development and climate change (Janetos et al., 2012; UN, 2015a; Hubacek et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r7|7]]</sup> .

While the SDGs capture many important aspects of sustainable development, including the explicit goals of poverty eradication and reducing inequality, there are direct connections from climate to other measures of sustainable development including multidimensional poverty, equity, ethics, human security, well-being and climate-resilient development (Bebbington and Larrinaga, 2014; Robertson, 2014; Redclift and Springett, 2015; Barrington-Leigh, 2016; Helliwell et al., 2018; Kirby and O’Mahony, 2018) <sup>[[#fn:r8|8]]</sup> (see Glossary). The UN proposes sustainable development as ‘eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, combating inequality within and among countries, preserving the planet, creating sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and fostering social inclusion’ (UN, 2015b) <sup>[[#fn:r9|9]]</sup> . There is ''robust evidence'' of the links between climate change and poverty (see Chapter 1, Cross-Chapter Box 4). The AR5 concluded with ''high confidence'' that disruptive levels of climate change would preclude reducing poverty (Denton et al., 2014; Fleurbaey et al., 2014) <sup>[[#fn:r10|10]]</sup> . International organizations have since stated that climate changes ‘undermine the ability of all countries to achieve sustainable development’ (UN, 2015b) <sup>[[#fn:r11|11]]</sup> and can reverse or erase improvements in living conditions and decades of development (Hallegatte et al., 2016) <sup>[[#fn:r12|12]]</sup> .

Climate warming has unequal impacts on different people and places as a result of differences in regional climate changes, vulnerabilities and impacts, and these differences then result in unequal impacts on sustainable development and poverty (Section 5.2). Responses to climate change also interact in complex ways with goals of poverty reduction. The benefits of adaptation and mitigation projects and funding may accrue to some and not others, responses may be costly and unaffordable to some people and countries, and projects may disadvantage some individuals, groups and development initiatives (Sections 5.3 and 5.4, Cross-Chapter Box 11 in Chapter 4).

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