Co-benefits Of Climate Change Mitigation

Co-benefits of climate change mitigation are the positive benefits related to mitigation measures which reduce greenhouse gas emissions or enhance carbon sinks. The beneficial or adverse impacts of deploying climate-change mitigation measures are highly context-specific and also depend on the scale.IPCC (2022
Technical Summary
I
Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA With regards to the transport sector, possible co-benefits of mitigation strategies include: air quality improvements, health benefits, equitable access to transportation services, reduced traffic congestion, and reduced material demand.IPCC (2022
Summary for policy makers
i
Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA For example, measures promoting walkable urban areas can create health co-benefits from cleaner air and benefits from enhanced mobility. The increased use of green and blue infrastructure can reduce the urban heat island effect and heat stress on people, which will improve the mental and physical health of urban dwellers. Country-specific co-benefits can include biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and livelihoods.

However, there can also be risks, adverse effects or trade-offs from mitigation measures, especially in the area of land-based mitigation measures.

Co-benefits in policy-making

Co-benefits of GHG mitigation can be an important decision criteria in analyses carried out by policy-makers, but they are often neglected, and often the co-benefits are not quantified, monetised or even identified by businesses and decision-makers. Appropriate consideration of co-benefits can greatly influence policy decisions concerning the timing and level of mitigation action, and there can be significant advantages to the national economy and technical innovation. Co-benefits increasingly emerged on the stage of international, political debates. The IPCC first mentioned the role of co-benefits in 2001, followed by its fourth and fifth assessment cycle stressing improved working environment, reduced waste, health benefits and reduced capital expenditures. In the early 2000s the OECD was further fostering its efforts in promoting ancillary benefits. During the past decade, co-benefits have been discussed by several other international organisations: The International Energy Agency ( IEA) spelled out the "multiple benefits approach" of energy efficiency while the International Renewable Energy Agency ( IRENA) operationalised the list of co-benefits of the renewable energy sector. Meanwhile, the UNFCCC's Paris Agreement acknowledges mitigation co-benefits from Parties' action plans. Co-benefits have been integrated in official national policy documents such as India's National Action Plan on Climate Change or the updated Vietnamese National Determined Contributions.

Co-benefits in research

Positive secondary effects that occur from climate mitigation and adaptation measures have been mentioned in research since the 1990s. The term co-benefits refers to "simultaneously meeting several interests or objectives resulting from a political intervention, private sector investment or a mix thereof". Opportunistic co-benefits appear as auxiliary or side effect while focusing on a central objective or interest. Strategic co-benefits result from a deliberate effort to seizing several opportunities (e.g., economic, business, social, environmental) with a single purposeful intervention." Co-benefits, also often referred to as ancillary benefits, have been addressed in scientific literature and were firstly dominated by studies that describe how lower GHG emissions lead to better air quality and consequently impact human health positively. The scope of co-benefits research expanded to its economic, social, ecological and political implications. From an economic perspective, co-benefits can enhance increased employment through carbon tax revenues and the implementation of renewable energy. A higher share of renewables can additionally lead to more energy security. Socioeconomic co-benefits have been analysed such as energy access in rural areas and improved rural livelihoods. Despite climate protection, mitigation policies can foster additional ecological trade-offs such as improved soil conservation, fertility, biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Further, mitigation policies bear opportunities for capacity building, participation and forest governance for local communities.

Different research groups currently examine the impacts of co-benefits of climate change mitigation. One of these projects is the COBENEFITS project of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany. The COBENEFITS project is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag. The project is conducted in close collaboration with government ministries, agencies, research institutions, and think tanks as political partners and knowledge partners in the target countries. These four target countries are India, South Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam. The project team, thereby, cooperates with national authorities and knowledge partners to develop key insights that enable them to mobilise these co-benefits in their countries and accelerate domestic processes aimed at achieving their international climate protection commitments.

Main co-benefits for people

Clean air

Climate change mitigation policies can lead to lower emissions of co-emitted air pollutants, for instance by shifting away from fossil fuel combustion. In addition, gases such as black carbon and methane contribute both to global warming and to air pollution, such that their mitigation can bring benefits in terms of limiting global temperature increases as well as improving air quality. Implementation of the climate pledges made in the run-up to the Paris Agreement could therefore have significant benefits for human health by improving air quality. The replacement of coal-based energy with renewables can lower the number of premature deaths caused by air pollution. A higher share of renewable energy and consequently less coal-related respiratory diseases can decrease health costs.

Active lifestyle

Biking reduces greenhouse gas emissions while reducing the effects of a sedentary lifestyle at the same time According to ''PLoS Medicine'': "obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, which are in part related to physical inactivity, may be reduced by a switch to low-carbon transport—including walking and cycling."

Health

Employment and economic development

Co-benefits can positively impact employment, industrial development, states' energy independence and energy self-consumption. The deployment of renewable energies can foster job opportunities. Depending on the country and deployment scenario, replacing coal power plants with renewable energy can more than double the number of jobs per average MW capacity. Investments in renewable energies, especially in solar- and wind energy, can boost the value of production. Countries which rely on energy imports can enhance their energy independence and ensure supply security by deploying renewables. National energy generation from renewables lowers the demand for fossil fuel imports which scales up annual economic saving. Households and businesses can additionally benefit from investments in renewable energy. The deployment of rooftop solar and PV-self-consumption creates incentives for low-income households and can support annual savings for the residential sector. One example in the United Kingdom has explored different options with sustainable housing since the 1990s. Surveys have identified over four hundred sustainable housing developments or single houses in the UK, with nearly two hundred built or planned since the mid-1990s. The goal of these sustainable homes is to reduce the carbon footprint of a large group of people. All these homes are considered low carbon housing, and to be considered as such, they must incorporate one of the following features: passive low energy design, a thermally efficient built form, and use of renewable energy technologies. Not only do these homes help the Earth through reducing carbon emission, but they are attractive and cheap homes for people to purchase. They helped many people who were struggling to find suitable living become homeowners. Eager homeowners were excited to purchase the carbon friendly homes because they saw an opportunity to not only become homeowners, but to also help the environment along the way.

Energy access

Positive secondary effects from mitigation strategies also occur on the socioeconomic dimension. The full electrification of remote areas through a centralised power grid remains often impeded by black outs. Rural areas which are not fully electrified can benefit from the deployment of renewable energies. Solar-powered mini-grids can remain economically viable, cost-competitive and reduce the number of power cuts. Energy reliability has additional social implications: stable electricity improves the quality of education.

Teleworking

One major contributor to the necessity to use various transportation methods daily is an individuals employment. Teleworking limits the amount of times that employees need to commute to work in-person and reduces the amount of transportation used everyday which, in turn, helps to lower overall emissions. It is estimated that 40 - 49 megatons of greenhouse gases could be mitigated by the year 2050 if teleworking is fully utilized by the maximum number of possible actors. Numerous co-benefits such as increased work efficiency, company savings (for example no more office space costs), and employee satisfaction stem from teleworking. This idea is held back by social and psychological fears as employees fear possible negative impacts on careers as well as increased social isolation.

References

{{Reflist

Emissions reduction
Environmental social science concepts
Human impact on the environment
Climate change mitigation