Identifying trade-offs and co-benefits of climate policies in China to align policies with SDGs and achieve the 2 °C goal

Abstract

The Paris Agreement set long-term global climate goals to pursue stabilization of the global mean temperature increase at below 2°C (the so-called 2°C goal). Individual countries submitted their own short-term targets, mostly for the year 2030. Meanwhile, the UN's sustainable development goals (SDGs) were designed to help set multiple societal goals with respect to socioeconomic development, the environment, and other issues. Climate policies can lead to intended or unintended consequences in various sectors, but these types of side effects rarely have been studied in China, where climate policies will play an important role in global greenhouse gas emissions and sustainable development is a major goal. This study identified the extent to which climate policies in line with the 2°C goal could have multi-sectoral consequences in China. Carbon constraints in China in the 2Deg scenario are set to align with the global 2°C target based on the emissions per capita convergence principle. Carbon policies for NDC pledges as well as policies in China regarding renewables, air pollution control, and land management were also simulated. The results show that energy security and air quality have cobenefits related to climate policies, whereas food security and land resources experienced negative side effects (trade-offs). Near-term climate actions were shown to help reduce these trade-offs in the midterm. A policy package that included food and land subsidies also helped achieve climate targets while avoiding the adverse side effects caused by the mitigation policies. The findings should help policymakers in China develop win-win policies that do not negatively affect some sectors, which could potentially enhance their ability to take climate actions to realize the global 2°C goal within the context of sustainable development.

Assessing synergies and trade-offs of diverging Paris-compliant mitigation strategies with long-term SDG objectives

“… Van de Ven et al (2019) analysed the impact of land policies and technology subsidies on air pollution, energy access and GHG emissions reductions simultaneously in Eastern African countries. Liu et al (2019) analysed multi-sectoral impacts of climate mitigation scenarios on food security, air quality, energy security and deforestation in China and Fujimori et al (2020) focused on the Asian region and combined several models to understand the impacts of GHG emission reduction on several SDG-related sectors in scenarios aligned with temperature targets included in the Paris Agreement.…”

China's renewable energy and energy efficiency policies toward carbon neutrality: A systematic cross-sectoral review

“…In addition to avoiding the negative consequences of climate change, decarbonization can address a wide range of environmental and social issues, such as ecosystem and environment protection, air quality improvement, food security, public health, livelihood, and poverty alleviation. [15][16][17][18][19] Under these circumstances, China has been treating climate change as an important socioeconomic and political issue. 1,20,21 On September 22, 2020, President Xi Jinping announced the targets of peaking CO 2 emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060 (Goal 3060), which further strengthened China's climate agenda and spurred low-carbon transition.…”

“…In addition to avoiding the negative consequences of climate change, decarbonization can address a wide range of environmental and social issues, such as ecosystem and environment protection, air quality improvement, food security, public health, livelihood, and poverty alleviation. 15–19…”

Modeling energy governance index for the adequacy of policy, legal, and institutional response measures for climate compatible development

“…A lack of understanding of the linkages, flexible behavior about trade-offs, and poorly designed sectoral synergies have resulted in incoherent policies, adverse impacts of development on different sectors, lost opportunities for sustainable solutions, and a delayed outcome to progress. Overall, major challenges include high financing costs; insufficient infrastructure; inadequate skills for production and transmission; policy, legal, and regulatory barriers; lack of political will and institutional effectiveness; ownership problems; and poor understanding (Galera 2017;Liu et al, 2019;Asante et al, 2020;Mahama, Derkyi, and Nwabue 2020;Usman, Khalid, and Mehdi 2021).…”