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

Jorge Moreno; Dirk-Jan Van de Ven; Jon Sampedro; Ajay Gambhir; Jem Woods; Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102624

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

Glob Environ Change. 2023 Jan:78:102624. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102624.

Authors

Jorge Moreno^{1

2}, Dirk-Jan Van de Ven¹, Jon Sampedro³, Ajay Gambhir⁴, Jem Woods², Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Leioa, Spain.
² Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom.
³ Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD, USA.
⁴ Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.
⁵ University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain.

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement are the two transformative agendas, which set the benchmarks for nations to address urgent social, economic and environmental challenges. Aside from setting long-term goals, the pathways followed by nations will involve a series of synergies and trade-offs both between and within these agendas. Since it will not be possible to optimise across the 17 SDGs while simultaneously transitioning to low-carbon societies, it will be necessary to implement policies to address the most critical aspects of the agendas and understand the implications for the other dimensions. Here, we rely on a modelling exercise to analyse the long-term implications of a variety of Paris-compliant mitigation strategies suggested in the recent scientific literature on multiple dimensions of the SDG Agenda. The strategies included rely on technological solutions such as renewable energy deployment or carbon capture and storage, nature-based solutions such as afforestation and behavioural changes in the demand side. Results for a selection of energy-environment SDGs suggest that some mitigation pathways could have negative implications on food and water prices, forest cover and increase pressure on water resources depending on the strategy followed, while renewable energy shares, household energy costs, ambient air pollution and yield impacts could be improved simultaneously while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, results indicate that promoting changes in the demand side could be beneficial to limit potential trade-offs.

Keywords: IAM; Interaction; Paris Agreement; SDG; Synergies; Trade-offs.