Chapter 1: Introduction and Framing
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1.4 Drivers and Constraints of Climate Mitigation and System Transitions/ Transformation
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1.4.6 Equity and Fairness
Equity and fairness can serve as both drivers and barriers to climate mitigation at different scales of governance. Literature regularly highlights equity and justice issues as critical components in local politics and international diplomacy regarding all SDGs, such as goals for no poverty, zero hunger, gender equality, affordable clean energy, reducing inequality, but also for climate action (SDG 13) (Marmot and Bell 2018; Spijkers 2018). Equity issues help explain why it has proved hard to reach more substantive global agreements, as it is hard to agree on a level of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation (or emissions) and how to distribute mitigation efforts among countries (Kverndokk 2018) for several reasons. First, an optimal trade-off between mitigation costs and damage costs of climate change depends on ethical considerations, and simulations from integrated assessment models using different ethical parameters producing different optimal mitigation paths (IPCC 2018b) (Section 3.6.1.2). Second, treaties that are considered unfair may be hard to implement (Klinsky et al. 2017; Liu et al. 2017). Lessons from experimental economics show that people may not accept a distribution that is considered unfair, even if there is a cost of not accepting (Gampfer 2014). As equity issues are important for reaching deep decarbonisation, the transition towards sustainable development (Evans and Phelan 2016; Heffron and McCauley 2018; Okereke 2018) depends on taking equity seriously in climate policies and international negotiations (Okereke and Coventry 2016; Klinsky et al. 2017; Martinez et al. 2019).
Climate change and climate policies affect countries and people differently. Low-income countries tend to be more dependent on primary industries (agriculture and fisheries, etc.) than richer countries, and their infrastructure may be less robust to tackle more severe weather conditions. Within a country, the burdens may not be equally distributed either, due to policy measures implemented and from differences in vulnerability and adaptive capacity following from e.g. income and wealth distribution, race and gender. For instance, unequal social structures can result in women being more vulnerable to the effects of climate change compared to men, especially in poor countries (Arora-Jonsson 2011; Jost et al. 2016; Rao et al. 2019). Costs of mitigation also differ across countries. Studies show there are large disparities of economic impacts of NDCs across regions, and also between relatively similar countries when it comes to the level of development, due to large differences in marginal abatement costs for the emission-reduction goal of NDCs (Fujimori et al. 2016; Hof et al. 2017; Akimoto et al. 2018; Evans & Gabbatiss 2019). Equalising the burdens from climate policies may give more support for mitigation policies (Maestre-Andrés et al. 2019).
1.4.7 Social Innovation and Behaviour Change
Social and psychological factors affect both perceptions and behaviour (Weber 2015; Whitmarsh et al. 2021). Religion, values, culture, gender, identity, social status and habits strongly influence individual behaviours and choices, and therefore sustainable consumption (Sections 1.6.3.1 and 5.2). Identities can provide powerful attachments to consumption activities and objects that inhibit shifts away from them (Brekke et al. 2003; Bénabou and Tirole 2011; Stoll-Kleemann and Schmidt 2017; Ruby et al. 2020). Consumption is a habit-driven and social practice rather than simply a set of individual decisions, making shifts in consumption harder to pursue (Evans et al. 2012; Shove and Spurling 2013; Kurz et al. 2015; Warde 2017; Verplanken and Whitmarsh 2021). Finally, shifts towards low-carbon behaviour are also inhibited by social- psychological and political dynamics that cause individuals to ignore the connections from daily consumption practices to climate change impacts (Norgaard 2011; Brulle and Norgaard 2019).
1.7 Four Analytic Frameworks for Understanding Mitigation Response Strategies
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1.7.2 Ethical Approaches
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1.7.2.2 Equity and Representation: International Public Choice Across Time and Space
Equity perspectives highlight three asymmetries relevant for climate change (Okereke and Coventry 2016; Okereke 2017) (Section 1.4.6). Asymmetry in contribution highlights different contributions to climate change both in historical and current terms, and applies both within and between states as well as between generations (Caney 2016; Heyward and Roser 2016). Asymmetry in impacts highlights the fact that the damages will be borne disproportionately across countries, regions, communities, individuals and gender; moreover, it is often those that have contributed the least that stand to bear the greatest impact of climate change (IPCC 2014a; Shi et al. 2016). Asymmetry in capacity highlights differences of power between groups and nations to participate in climate decision and governance, including the capacity to implement mitigation and adaptation measures.
