IPCC Assessment in depth, Part 14: What does the report say about climate-resilient development?

The threat that climate change poses to human well-being and the health of the planet is “unequivocal”, says the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In this in-depth Q&A series, Carbon Brief unpacks the key findings of the report and the developments since the IPCC’s last assessment. (Read previous section here)

By Carbon Brief

14. What does the report say about climate-resilient development?

The link between climate change and sustainable development has “long been recognised and has been assessed in every WG2 report since AR3” in 2001, the report says. The concept of “climate-resilient development” was introduced in AR5 “to help assess development trajectories that include coordinated adaptation and mitigation actions aimed at reducing climate risk”.

The AR6 report devotes chapter 18 to the topic, along with dedicated sections within other chapters, “emphasising the need for integrative and transformative solutions within a sector or region that address the uneven distribution of climate risks among different groups and geographies”.

The authors define climate-resilient development as “a process of implementing greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation solutions to support sustainable development for all”. They explain that pursuing climate action and sustainable development “in an integrated manner increases their effectiveness in enhancing human and ecological well-being”.

Climate-resilient development can “help build capacity” for mitigation and adaptation, the report says. For example, it has very high confidence that “incorporating clean energy generation, healthy diets from sustainable food systems, appropriate urban planning and transport, universal health coverage and social protection, can generate substantial health and wellbeing co-benefits”. It adds:

“Similarly, universal water and energy access can help to reduce poverty and improve well-being while making populations less vulnerable and more resilient to adverse climate impacts.”

There are “multiple possible pathways” to pursue climate-resilient development, the report says, which “involves confronting complex synergies and trade-offs”. It adds:

“Reconciling the costs, benefits and trade-offs associated with adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development interventions and how they are distributed among different populations and geographies is essential and challenging, but also creates the potential to pursue synergies that benefit human and ecological well-being.”

The figure below – from the SPM – illustrates how societal choices lead towards (pathways in green) or away from (pathways in red) climate-resilient development. Some choices have mixed outcomes, which are shown as pathways in yellow and orange.

The figure highlights that there is a “narrow and closing window of opportunity to make transformational changes to move towards and not away from development futures that are more climate-resilient and sustainable”, the authors note. The dotted lines indicate pathways that are “no longer available due to past societal choices and increasing temperatures”.

The authors note that “inadequate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 reduces climate-resilient development prospects”.

The report warns that current development trends along with the impacts of climate change “are leading away from, rather than toward, sustainable development”. There is moderate agreement and robust evidence for this conclusion, the report notes.

These trends include “rising income inequality, continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions, land use change, food and water insecurity, human displacement, and reversals of long-term increasing life expectancy trends in some nations”, the report says. In turn, these trends “contribute to worsening poverty, injustice and inequity, and environmental degradation”, the authors say, which can be further exacerbated through climate change “by undermining human and ecological well-being”.

The SPM warns with high confidence that climate resilient development “is already challenging at current global warming levels”, adding:

“The prospects for climate resilient development will be further limited if global warming levels exceeds 1.5C (high confidence) and not be possible in some regions and sub-regions if the global warming level exceeds 2C (medium confidence).”

Opportunities for climate resilient development vary by location, the report says with very high confidence:

“Response to global greenhouse gas emissions trajectories, regional and local development pathways, climate risk exposure, socioeconomic and ecological vulnerability, and the local capacity to implement effective adaptation and greenhouse gas mitigation options, differ depending on local contexts and conditions.”

For example, it says, “underlying social and economic vulnerabilities in Australasia, exacerbate disadvantage among particular social groups and there is deep underinvestment in adaptation, given current and projected risks”.

Box 18.2 in the report highlights the “vision of climate-resilient development in Kenya” as a case study. The country’s government has a vision to “transform Kenya into a newly-industrialising, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens in a clean and secure environment”.

A key element of this vision is the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia project (LAPSSET), which aims to create a transport corridor connecting Kenya’s Lamu port with South Sudan and Ethiopia. The project consists of two elements: a 500-metre wide “infrastructure corridor” where the road, railway, pipelines, power transmission and other projects will be located, and an “economic corridor” of 50km on either side of the infrastructure corridor, which will contain “other industrial investments”, the report says.

Supporters of the project argue that it will help open up “poorly connected regions, enabling the development of pertinent economic sectors such as agriculture, livestock and energy, and supporting the attainment of a range of social goals made possible as the economy grows”, the report says.

However, it “remains controversial in its assumptions, not least because it is being promoted in the context of a highly complex and dynamic social, economic and biophysical setting”.

The interconnected nature of these different factors “intersect with LAPSSET in myriad ways”, the authors say:

“For example, the implementation of LAPSSET may accentuate some trends, such as increases in land enclosure and a shift towards more urban and sedentary livelihoods. Conversely, the perceived threat LAPSSET could pose to pastoral lifestyles may lead to greater visibility, solidarity and strength of pastoralist institutions.”

Box 18.6 in the report describes how ecosystems play a “key role” in climate-resilient development, noting the importance of actions taken to mitigate climate change not compromising adaptation, biodiversity and human needs. This section also notes:

“Ecosystem protection and restoration, ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and nature-based solution (NbS) can lower climate risk to people and achieve multiple benefits including food and material provision, climate mitigation and social benefits.”

The report also has a “cross-chapter box” focusing on “gender, climate justice and transformative pathways”. It notes with high confidence that “gender and other social inequities (e.g., racial, ethnic, age, income, geographic location) compound vulnerability to climate change impacts”.

Adaptation actions “do not automatically have positive outcomes for gender equality”, the authors note, and “efforts are needed to change unequal power dynamics and to foster inclusive decision making for climate adaptation to have a positive impact for gender equality”.

In addition, the report notes with very high confidence that “there are very few examples of successful integration of gender and other social inequities in climate policies to address climate change vulnerabilities and questions of social justice”.

There is no set definition of what constitutes success for climate-resilient development, the report notes. Instead, achievement or success is “always a work in progress”, it says:

“It is a constant process of evaluating, valuing, acting and adjusting various options for mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development, shaped by societal values as well as contestations of those values.”

That said, if climate-resilient development is defined as “a process of implementing greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation options to support sustainable development for all” then “this implies various potential criteria for success”, the authors note. Therefore, “the 17 United Nations’ SDGs provide a good (although limited) measure of progress”.

All sections:

1. What is the IPCC report?
2. How is climate change affecting land ecosystems?
3. What impact is global warming having on marine life?
4. How is climate change affecting the world’s water?
5. What does the IPCC report say about impacts on food and agriculture?
6. What risks does climate change pose to the world’s cities?
7. What does the report say about public health, conflict and migration?
8. How does climate change affect poverty and progress towards the sustainable development goals?
9. How is the world adapting to climate change?
10. Are there limits to what adaptation can achieve?
11. What does the report say about ‘loss and damage’?
12. What are the risks of ‘maladaptation’ and the unintended consequences of tackling climate change?
13. What role can nature-based solutions play in adaptation and mitigation?
14. What does the report say about climate-resilient development?
15. What the latest IPCC report says about carbon fee and dividend

Authors:

Aruna Chandrasekhar holds an MSc in environmental change and management from the University of Oxford. She previously worked as a freelance journalist for a variety of publications, including the New York Times, Guardian, Scroll and Caravan.

Daisy Dunne holds a BSc in biology from the University of Bristol and a science journalism MA from City, University of London. She was The Independent’s climate correspondent from November 2020 to 2021. Prior to this, she was Carbon Brief’s science writer from 2017 to 2020.

Josh Gabbatiss covers climate and energy policy. Josh holds a BSc in zoology from the University of Bristol. He previously worked as science correspondent at The Independent and prior to that was a freelance journalist for a variety of scientific publications including New Scientist and BBC Earth.