Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-13 (section)

=== 13.9.5 Systemic Responses for Climate Mitigation ===

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There is now a significant body of work which explicitly states, or implicitly accepts, that systemic change may be necessary to deliver successful climate mitigation, including net zero targets. Newell phrases this as the difference between ‘plug and play’ mitigation applications where one aspect of a system is changed while everything in the system remains the same compared to systemic change, with change affecting all the system ( [[#Newell--2021a|Newell 2021a]] ,b). This section highlights an emergent, multidisciplinary literature since IPCC AR5, which suggests that acceleration to decarbonised systems via a sustainable development pathway may be better achieved by moving from a single policy instrument or mix of policies approach to a systemic economy-wide approach (Figure 13.6).

The complexity and multi-facetted challenges of rapidly decarbonising our current interconnected systems (such as energy, food, health) in a just way has led [[#Michaelowa--2018|Michaelowa et al. (2018)]] to conclude that implementation of strong mitigation policy packages that are needed requires a systemic change in policymaking.

Multiple modelling assessments of different development and mitigation pathways are available. Most of these analyses which lead to significant climate mitigation assume significant systemic change across social, technological, and economic aspects of a country for example, India ( [[#Gupta--2020|Gupta et al. 2020]] ); Japan ( [[#Sugiyama--2021|Sugiyama et al. 2021]] ) and the globe ( [[#Rogelj--2015|Rogelj et al. 2015]] ; [[#Dejuán--2020|Dejuán et al. 2020]] ).

UNEP (2020) argued that major, long-term sectoral transformation across multiple systems is needed to reach net zero GHG emissions. [[#Bernstein--2019|Bernstein and Hoffmann (2019)]] and [[#Rockström--2017|Rockström et al. (2017)]] argue that the presence of multi-level, multi-sectoral lock-ins of overlapping and interdependent political, economic, technological and cultural forces mean that a new approach of coordinated, cross-economy, systemic climate mitigation is necessary. [[#Creutzig--2018|Creutzig et al. (2018)]] propose a resetting of the approach to consumption and use of resources to that of demand side solutions, which would have ongoing economy-wide systemic implications.

Others focus more on single system reconfigurations, such as the energy system ( [[#Matthes--2017|Matthes 2017]] ; [[#Tozer--2020|Tozer 2020]] ); urban systems ( [[#Holtz--2018|Holtz et al. 2018]] ); or the political system ( [[#Somerville--2020|Somerville 2020]] ; [[#Newell--2020|Newell and Simms 2020]] ). [[#Becken--2019|Becken (2019)]] argues that only systemic changes at a large scale will be sufficient to break or disrupt existing arrangements and routines in the tourism industry.

Others argue for thinking about mitigation in even wider ways. [[#O’Brien--2018|O’Brien (2018)]] posits that sector-focused, or a silo approach, to mitigation may need to give way to decisions and policies which reach across sectoral, geographic and political boundaries and involve a broad set of interrelated processes – practical, political and personal. Gillard et al. ( [[#Gillard--2016|Gillard et al. 2016]] ) argue that a response to climate change has to move beyond incremental responses, aiming instead for a society-wide transformation which goes beyond a system perspective to include learning from social theory; while [[#Eyre--2018|Eyre et al. (2018)]] argue that moving beyond incremental emissions reductions will require expanding the focus of efforts beyond the technical to include people, and their behaviour and attitudes. [[#Stoddard--2021|Stoddard et al. (2021)]] argue that ‘more sustainable and just futures require a radical reconfiguration of long-run socio-cultural and political economic norms and institutions’. They focus on nine themes: international climate governance, the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry, geopolitics and militarism, economics and financialisation, mitigation modelling, energy supply systems, inequity, high carbon lifestyles and social imaginaries.

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