Country diagnostics for low carbon development: Can developing countries pursue simultaneous implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement?

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the 2030 Development Agenda and the Paris Agreement, both agreed in 2015, call for the world to simultaneously address development and climate change. Some researchers argue that the SDGs put more emphasis on the value of economic growth, and if so, it would pose a challenging situation, especially to developing countries considering the nexus among economic growth, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions. In order to understand to what extent the SDGs advancement accompanies CO2 emissions increase, a study is needed to investigate development pathways of various countries during the past decades. This study aims to empirically identify well‐performing countries, in terms of both the SDGs implementation and CO2 emission mitigations, and investigate causes of the difference from the others through the decomposition analysis. The results confirm a good number of well‐performers, particularly among the Latin American and the transition countries. It is found that well‐targeted policy interventions for expanding the essential public services such as health, education, energy, water, and sanitation, are effective for advancing the SDGs. The decomposition analysis shows that the countries which made significant advancements in the SDGs had tangible positive economic growth effects on their per‐capita CO2 emissions. But if policy attention is paid to reduce the energy and carbon intensities, especially in the energy‐intensive sectors, such as the industry, energy, and transport sectors, the increases of per‐capita CO2 emissions can be minimized. Proper private sector engagements are considered effective to this end.

Recent trends on the linkages between energy, SDGs and the Paris Agreement: a review of policy-based studies

“…Policymakers must also incorporate the additional energy demand necessary to accomplish other SDGs and transformation toward decarbonisation [48,58]. Relevant to this issue, it is found that countries with tangible positive economic growth effects on their per capita CO2 emission made significant advancements in the SDGs, implying that embedding carbon in highly intensive sectors greatly impacts other sectors' carbon footprints [59]. Countries following 'low CO2 emission and high SDG attainment' development pathways or countries with strong agenda on well-being targets have a policy focus to facilitate investment that allows expansion of essential public services coverages, such as health, education, energy, water, and sanitation [23,34,59].…”

Application of IoT in Healthcare: Keys to Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals

“…Healthcare systems must develop the ability to measure and use data to learn and must be based on four values: they must be for people and they must be equitable, resilient, and efficient [127]. Well-directed political institutions expanding essential public services such as healthcare, education, energy, water, and sanitation are effective in promoting the SDGs [128].…”

“…In any country or community, energy projects and installations of any type and in any field cannot be conceived without a remote management system, effective in promoting the SDGs [128].…”

How mandatory corporate social responsibility can help governments with development goals

“…The literature on corporate involvement in development has discussed the nature, success, and sustainability implications of private sector involvement in SDGs via CSR (Haslam, 2021), internal audit and governance (Auld & Renckens, 2021), a role for accounting research (Bebbington & Unerman, 2018). Kobayakawa (2021) suggests that private sector involvement may be beneficial in keeping the increase in carbon emissions contained in specific sectors in line with the Paris agreement while the government implements the SDGs. Companies also use CSR to depress collective action by workers (Haslam, 2021) or contribute to development (Forcadell & Aracil, 2019).…”