Can the Paris deal boost SDGs achievement? An assessment of climate mitigation co-benefits or side-effects on poverty and inequality

Abstract

The paper analyses the synergies and trade-offs between emission reduction policies and sustainable development objectives. Specifically, it provides an ex-ante assessment that the impacts of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), submitted under the Paris Agreement, will have on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of poverty eradication (SDG1) and reduced income inequality (SDG10). By combining an empirical analysis with a modelling exercise, the paper estimates the future trends of poverty prevalence and inequality across countries in a reference scenario and under a climate mitigation policy with alternative revenue recycling schemes. Our results suggest that a full implementation of the emission reduction contributions, stated in the NDCs, is projected to slow down the effort to reduce poverty by 2030 (+2% of the population below the poverty line compared to the baseline scenario), especially in countries that have proposed relatively more stringent mitigation targets and suffer higher policy costs. Conversely, countries with a stringent mitigation policy experience a reduction of inequality compared to baseline scenario levels. If financial support for mitigation action in developing countries is provided through an international climate fund, the prevalence of poverty will be slightly reduced at the aggregate level (185,000 fewer poor people with respect to the mitigation scenario), but the country-specific effect depends on the relative size of funds flowing to beneficiary countries and on their economic structure.

Combining ambitious climate policies with efforts to eradicate poverty

“…Using the latter approach, Hussein et al 32 find that ambitious mitigation policies in developing countries would increase poverty rates, similarly to our results without progressive redistribution. Campagnolo & Davide 34 also employed a CGE model, but use its results (e.g. public education expenditure, sectoral value added, unemployment) to drive regression models for inequality and poverty.…”

“…Previous studies considering multiple countries have focused on the poverty implications of moderate carbon prices 32 , 33 , but are limited to a static perspective and/or a moderate number of countries 32 , or do not include the important effect of land-based mitigation measures on poverty 33 . An analysis of the poverty consequences of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) 34 has shown relatively moderate effects on global poverty in 2030. By contrast, our study quantifies the consequences of an ambitious, Paris-compatible mitigation pathway for global poverty until mid-century.…”

Potential implications of carbon dioxide removal for the sustainable development goals

“…. The significant public spending required to operate large-scale DACS (and lack of co-benefits) could disadvantage poverty-alleviation efforts (Campagnolo & Davide, 2019).…”

The New ‘Bond-Age’, Climate Crisis and the Case for Climate Reparations: Unpicking Old/New Colonialities of Finance for Development Within the SDGs

“…In 2009, countries met as part of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC) and pledged to raise $100 billion annually up to 2020 to address and later set up the Green Climate Fund as a mechanism to administer and disburse these funds. The current framework of climate finance was established within the Paris Agreement which has placed a heavy emphasis on mitigation given the role that advanced industrialised countries have played in global climate politics (Abadie, Galarraga and Rübbelke, 2013;Campagnolo and Davide, 2019;Khan et al, 2019). Decarbonisation, or mitigation goals, has been are a primary focus of the North Atlantic countries given the uneven spatial impacts of the climate crisis on the social economies of Europe and North America which have been able to withstand climate shocks despite their huge financial costs (CRED and UNDRR, 2020).…”