Transitioning to Low-Carbon Economies under the 2030 Agenda: Minimizing Trade-Offs and Enhancing Co-Benefits of Climate-Change Action for the SDGs

Gabriela Ileana Iacobuţă, Niklas Höhne, Heleen Laura van Soest and Rik Leemans
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Gabriela Ileana Iacobuţă: German Development Institute/Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), Tulpenfeld 6, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Niklas Höhne: Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University & Research, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands
Heleen Laura van Soest: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, P.O. Box 30314, 2500 GH The Hague, The Netherlands
Rik Leemans: Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University & Research, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-22

Abstract: The 2030 Agenda with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change were adopted in 2015. Although independently defined, the two agreements are strongly interlinked. We developed a framework that scores the impacts of climate-change actions on all SDG targets based on directionality (i.e., trade-offs or co-benefits) and likelihood of occurrence (i.e., ubiquitous or context-dependent), and categorizes them by dependence on four key context dimensions—geographical, governance, time horizon and limited natural resources. Through an extensive literature review, we found that climate-change mitigation measures directly affect most SDGs and their targets, mostly through co-benefits. Improving energy efficiency, reducing energy-services demand and switching to renewables provide the most co-benefits. In contrast, carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy likely lead to multiple trade-offs. We show how understanding the relevant context dimensions facilitates policy design and policy mixes that enhance co-benefits and minimize trade-offs. Finally, by assessing the prevalence of climate-change mitigation measures in G20 countries, we found that measures with more co-benefits are more frequently adopted. Our study advances the knowledge of climate–SDG interactions, contributing to climate and sustainable development governance research, and facilitating policy design for a joint implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda.

Keywords: climate change; sustainable development goals; climate-change policy; policy coherence; G20; domestic policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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