Four agendas for research and policy on emissions mitigation and well-being

Abstract

Non-technical abstract The climate crisis requires nations to achieve human well-being with low national levels of carbon emissions. Countries vary from one another dramatically in how effectively they convert resources into well-being, and some nations with low levels of emissions have relatively high objective and subjective well-being. We identify urgent research and policy agendas for four groups of countries with either low or high emissions and well-being indicators. Least studied are those with low well-being and high emissions. Understanding social and political barriers to switching from high-carbon to lower-carbon modes of production and consumption, and ways to overcome them, will be fundamental.

The SDGs and human well-being: a global analysis of synergies, trade-offs, and regional differences

“…It thus offers an alternative model for developing countries to avoid the Western carbon-intensive development path 44 . Interestingly, many Latin American countries with warmer climates and a lower propensity to engage in international trade 36 perform strongly in terms of self-reported well-being whilst also scoring highly in terms of SDG12 (sustainable consumption and production), supporting the notion that human well-being decouples from environmental impact beyond minimum levels of consumption 39 . More research is needed to better understand the development trajectories of these countries and the policy mechanisms which allow for synergies between well-being and ecological sustainability 36 .…”

“…Interestingly, many Latin American countries with warmer climates and a lower propensity to engage in international trade 36 perform strongly in terms of self-reported well-being whilst also scoring highly in terms of SDG12 (sustainable consumption and production), supporting the notion that human well-being decouples from environmental impact beyond minimum levels of consumption 39 . More research is needed to better understand the development trajectories of these countries and the policy mechanisms which allow for synergies between well-being and ecological sustainability 36 . Policies such as investment in public services to moderate private consumption 27 and harnessing productivity gains to reduce working hours 45 have been proposed.…”

“…The challenge for policy-makers is thus to resolve the short-term trade-off by de-coupling human well-being improvements from the consumption of natural resources and GHG emissions 36 . A recent report by the OECD attempts to address this challenge by proposing climate change mitigation through a well-being lens, putting people at the centre of climate action 37 .…”

The unequal distribution of household carbon footprints in Europe and its link to sustainability

“…We explore the distribution of CFs relative to multidimensional social indicators focusing on income, education, health and living conditions, allowing for a broader measurement of poverty and equity and comparisons across the Sustainable Development Goals (Rao et al, 2017). We observe wide ranges in income, education, nutrition, employment and poverty for the same levels of CFs, highlighting successful cases of low-carbon contribution and high levels of social well-being, as well as high-carbon, low-well-being cases that need further attention (Roberts et al, 2020). Ensuring decent levels of physical requirements (e.g., nutrition, shelter) and social requirements (e.g., communications, mobility) (Rao & Baer, 2012;Rao & Min, 2018) for well-being should be a key consideration in the design of a fair climate policy.…”

“…comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of the distributional impacts of climate policies and climate change impacts on various household groups is needed in order to inform mitigation and adaptation policies (Rao et al, 2017), capturing household heterogeneity in consumption, income and well-being indicators. The distributional perspective within countries and regions provides an additional monitoring base, and thus a more complete picture of the beneficiaries of various actions and policies (Cullenward et al, 2016;Roberts et al, 2020;Steininger et al, 2016). Furthermore, there is robust evidence that overconsumption and materialistic practices are not only damaging for the environment, but may also reduce psychological well-being (Brown & Kasser, 2005;Jackson, 2005).…”