Chapter 4: Mitigation and Development Pathways in the Near to Mid-term
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4.3 Shifting Development Pathways
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4.3.2 Implications of Development Pathways for Mitigation and Mitigative Capacity
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4.3.2.1 Countries Have Different Development Priorities
Development priorities are reflected in the decisions that actors within societies make, such as policy choices by governments and parliaments at all levels, votes over competing policy platforms by citizens, or selection of issues that non-state actors push for. Multiple objectives range from poverty eradication to providing energy access, addressing concerns of inequality, providing education, improving health, cleaning air and water, improving connectivity, sustaining growth and providing jobs, among others. For example, eradicating poverty and reducing inequality is a key development priority across many countries, such as Brazil (Grottera et al. 2017), Indonesia (Irfany and Klasen 2017), India (GoI 2015), South Africa (Winkler 2018) and other low- and middle-income countries (Dorband et al. 2019). Reducing inequality relates not only to income, but also to other dimensions such as in access to energy services (Tait 2017), gender, education, racial and ethnic profiles (Andrijevic et al. 2020), and thereby assumes relevance in both developing and developed countries. The development priorities of many poor countries and communities with low capacities to adapt, has been focused more on reducing poverty, providing basic infrastructure, education and improving health, rather than on mitigation (Chimhowu et al. 2019).
4.3.2.3 Development Pathways Shape Emissions and Capacities to Mitigate
Since reducing inequality, as noted above, is globally one of the main development priorities, a large body of literature focuses on the compatibility of climate change mitigation and reduction in economic inequality (Baek and Gweisah 2013; Auffhammer and Wolfram 2014; Berthe and Elie 2015; Hao et al. 2016; Grunewald et al. 2017; Wiedenhofer et al. 2017). However, the use of narrow approaches or simple methods of studying the relationships of income inequality and emissions by looking at correlations, may miss important linkages. For example, the influence of inequality on social values such as status and civic mindedness and non-political interests that shape environmental policy can influence overall consumption and its environmental impacts (Berthe and Elie 2015). Moreover, inequalities may also be reflected in gender, education, racial and ethnic profiles and could accordingly be associated with the level of emissions and mitigation prospects (Andrijevic et al. 2020).
4.4 How to Shift Development Pathways and Accelerate the Pace and Scale of Mitigation
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4.4.1 Approaches, Enabling Conditions and Examples
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4.4.1.5 Changing Behaviour and Lifestyles
Collective action by individuals as part of formal social movements or informal lifestyle movements underpins system change (robust evidence, high agreement) (Sections 5.4 and 5.5). Organisations are comprised of individuals, but also become actors in their own right. Recent literature has considered the role of coalitions and social movements in energy democracy and energy transitions towards sustainability (Hess 2018). Other scholars have examined the role of women in redistributing power, both in the sense of energy transition and in terms of gender relations (Allen et al. 2019; Routledge et al. 2018). Mitigation and broader sustainable development policies that facilitate active participation by stakeholders can build trust, forge new social contracts, and contribute to a positive cycle building climate governance capacity (Section 5.2.3).
4.4.1.7 Example: Structural Change Provides a Way to Keep Jobs and Mitigate
The future viability of sectors will depend on the extent to which they can remain profitable while relying on lower-carbon energy. The challenge to identify alternative sectors of growth is particularly acute for countries that today depend on oil and natural gas for most of their foreign exchange and government revenues (Mirzoev et al. 2020). Changes in economic structure will also have gender implications since the roles of men and women vary across sectors. For example, in many developing countries, sectors in which women play a relatively important role, including agriculture and unpaid household services like collection of water and fuel wood, may be negatively affected by climate change (Roy 2018). It may thus be important to take complementary actions to address the gender implications of changes in economic structure.
4.5 Equity, Including Just Transitions
Topics of equity and fairness have begun to receive a greater amount of attention within the energy and climate literature, namely through the approaches of gender and race (Pearson et al. 2017; Lennon 2017; Allen et al. 2019), climate justice (Roberts and Parks 2007; Routledge et al. 2018) (Roberts & Parks, 2006; Routledge et al. 2018), and energy justice (Sovacool and Dworkin 2014). While such approaches frequently envision justice and equity as an ethical imperative, justice also possesses the instrumental value of enabling deeper and more socially acceptable mitigation efforts (Klinsky and Winkler 2018).
The literature identifies targeted and proactive measures from governments, agencies, and authorities to ensure that any negative social, environmental or economic impacts of economy-wide transitions are minimised, while benefits are maximised for those disproportionally affected (Healy and Barry 2017). While the precise definition varies by source, core elements tend to include: (i) investments in establishing low-emission and labour-intensive technologies and sectors (Mijn Cha et al. 2020); (ii) research and early assessment of the social and employment impacts of climate policies (Green and Gambhir 2020; Mogomotsi et al. 2018); (iii) social dialogue and democratic consultation of social partners and stakeholders (Swilling and Annecke 2012; Smith 2017); (iv) the creation of decent jobs; active labour markets policies; and rights at work (ILO 2015; UNFCCC 2016c); (v) fairness in energy access and use (Carley and Konisky 2020); (vi) economic diversification based on low-carbon investments; (vii) realistic training/retraining programs that lead to decent work; (viii) gender specific politics that promote equitable outcomes (Allwood 2020); (ix) the fostering of international cooperation and coordinated multilateral actions (Lenferna 2018b; Newell and Simms 2020); (x) redressing of past harms and perceived injustices (Setzer and Vanhala 2019; UNHRC 2020); and (xi) consideration of inter-generational justice concerns, such as the impacts of policy decisions on future generations (Newell and Mulvaney, 2013).
