Exploring Synergies And Trade Offs Between Climate Change And The Sustainable Development Goals

The existential environmental crisis prompted the United Nations to formulate the Millennium Development Goals at the turn of the 21st century in order to embark on an era of sustainable development. The progress and deficiencies in achieving the Millennium Development Goals provided impetus to the intelligentsia and policymakers to map out the pertinent goals for a sustainable growth trajectory for humanity and the planet. The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted in September 2015, took the shape of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets. In effect, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals focus on protecting the earth's life support systems for intra- and inter-generational equity and for development that is rooted in sustainability science. Attaining these goals is an uphill task; nevertheless, scientific knowledge, trans and interdisciplinary inquiries, concerted global action and capacity building would provide an enabling environment for achieving the SDGs. This book explores the synergies and trade-offs between climate change management and other SDGs. It highlights the policy imperatives as well as the interrelations between combating climate change and its impacts (SDG 13) and food and nutritional security (SDG 2), water security (SDG 6), soil security (SDG 15), energy security (SDG 7), poverty eradication (SDG 1), gender equality (SDG 5), resilient infrastructure (SDG 9), and sustainable and resilient cities (SDG 11).

A global assessment of potential and anticipated impacts of efforts to achieve the SDGs on forests and related socio-economic systems. This title is available as Open Access via Cambridge Core.

How can we design more sustainable industrial and urban systems that reduce environmental impacts while supporting a high quality of life for everyone? What progress has been made towards reducing resource use and waste, and what are the prospects for more resilient, material-efficient economies? What are the environmental and social impacts of global supply chains and how can they be measured and improved? Such questions are at the heart of the emerging discipline of industrial ecology, covered in Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology. Leading authors, researchers and practitioners review how far industrial ecology has developed and current issues and concerns, with illustrations of what the industrial ecology paradigm has achieved in public policy, corporate strategy and industrial practice. It provides an introduction for students coming to industrial ecology and for professionals who wish to understand what industrial ecology can offer, a reference for researchers and practitioners and a source of case studies for teachers.

This book explores climate change responsiveness policies for cities and discusses why they have been slow to gain traction despite having been on the international agenda for the last 30 years. The contributing role of cities in accentuating the effects of climate change is increasingly demonstrated in the literature, underscoring the unsustainable models on which urban life has been made to thrive. As these issues become increasingly apparent, there are global calls to adopt more sustainable and equitable models, however doing so will mean the disruption of economies that have historically relied upon pollution-generating industries. In order to address these issues the authors examine them from a cross-disciplinary perspective, bringing in regional, local and urban standpoints to subsequently propose an alternative short-term economic model that could accelerate the adoption of climate change mitigation infrastructures and urban sustainability in urban areas. This book will be of particular value to scholars and students alike in the field of urbanism, sustainability and resilience, as well as practitioners looking at avenues for economically incentivizing sustainable development in various geographical context.

This book presents the energy system roadmaps necessary to limit global temperature increase to below 2°C, in order to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change. It provides a unique perspective on and critical understanding of the feasibility of a well-below-2°C world by exploring energy system pathways, technology innovations, behaviour change and the macro-economic impacts of achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century. The transformative changes in the energy transition are explored using energy systems models and scenario analyses that are applied to various cities, countries and at a global scale to offer scientific evidence to underpin complex policy decisions relating to climate change mitigation and interrelated issues like energy security and the energy–water nexus. It includes several chapters directly related to the Nationally Determined Contributions proposed in the context of the recent Paris Agreement on Climate Change. In summary, the book collates a range of concrete analyses at different scales from around the globe, revisiting the roles of countries, cities and local communities in pathways to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make a well-below-2°C world a reality. A valuable source of information for energy modellers in both the industry and public sectors, it provides a critical understanding of both the feasibility of roadmaps to achieve a well-below-2°C world, and the diversity and wide applications of energy systems models. Encompassing behaviour changes; technology innovations; macro-economic impacts; and other environmental challenges, such as water, it is also of interest to energy economists and engineers, as well as economic modellers working in the field of climate change mitigation.

. . . this book gives a good overview of major challenges facing policy makers, researchers and ultimately humankind in dealing with climate change. . . The reader also gets a good understanding of how fragmented and transversal the issues of climate change and sustainable development are. Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture . . . a unified, useful and stimulating book which should act as a springboard for further work into what is a very topical and extremely important issue for everyone in the world, not just academics and policymakers. This book serves its intended audience but also deserves to be more widely read. World Entrepreneurship Society Too often, writings on climate change are placed into two categories: climate-change deniers, and climate-change supporters. What this timely and insightful collection of Mohamed Salih s does, is to problematise the issue; taking the debate to a level where it desperately needs to be; asking the thorny questions of how do the politics and international relations of climate impact upon the most vulnerable; the least-affluent; the dwellers of the majority world. In short, Salih challenges us: How did the climate change about climate-change . The responses of his contributors are salient, to-the-point sometimes disturbing but always thought-provoking. Timothy Doyle, Keele University, UK Editing the proceedings of a symposium into a cogent and coherent book is no easy task. This book, a tribute to Professor Opschoor is no exception; with disperse contributions of some highly acclaimed authors covering a wide spectrum of themes. It is a credit to Professor Salih s insight to string them together in the introductory chapter and entice the reader to read on. This book has food for thought on many fronts, reaching far beyond climate change, as did the oeuvre of Hans Opschoor. . . an instructive read. Paul Vlek, Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn, Germany It is difficult, if not impossible, to formulate and implement sustainable policy without first understanding the dynamic relationships between nature, society, economics and technology, and research plays a pivotal role in this regard. Climate Change and Sustainable Development is an important book which deals with these issues in the context of climate change and the changing global context of development. It alerts us to the relationship climate change has with two urgent tasks: poverty reduction and sustainable development, which require efforts that span countries, regions and communities. In this interdependent world, argue the authors, a shared vision and common effort are vital to sustaining our life support system. It is a must read. Jacqueline Cramer, The Netherlands Minister for Spatial Planning and the Environment This unique book provides cutting-edge knowledge and analyses of the consequences that climate change will have for sustainable development and poverty reduction within the context of global development. Exploring alternative resource management approaches including federal resource management governance, ecosystem services, digital dematerialization, ecological cities, biofuels versus food, and children and climate change, this innovative volume provides fresh insights on the human condition with regards to the current debates on climate change. The distinguished contributors examine climate change induced processes that present profound challenges to sustainable development and poverty reduction at the local, national and global levels. This groundbreaking study will be a welcome addition for graduate and post-graduate students in development and environmental studies. It will also have great appeal to scientists, policy-makers and researchers in these fields.

This report builds on the OECD Well-being Framework and applies a new perspective that analyses synergies and trade-offs between climate change mitigation and broader goals such as health, education, jobs, as well as wider environmental quality and the resources needed to sustain our livelihoods through time. This report takes an explicitly political economy approach to the low-emissions transitions needed across five economic sectors (electricity, heavy industry, residential, surface transport, and agriculture) that are responsible for more than 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions.