Grand Challenges Cannot Be Treated in Isolation

Abstract

If not well understood, linkages among the grand challenges of poverty alleviation, environment protection, and climate mitigation could lead to paralyzed policies and even conflicting consequences. Quick changes need to happen at the institutional, societal, and scientific levels to maximize the synergy of addressing these challenges instead of treating them in isolation. If not well understood, linkages among the grand challenges of poverty alleviation, environment protection, and climate mitigation could lead to paralyzed policies and even conflicting consequences. Quick changes need to happen at the institutional, societal, and scientific levels to maximize the synergy of addressing these challenges instead of treating them in isolation. The need to alleviate poverty, protect the environment, and mitigate the worsening effects of climate change represent just a few of the grand challenges facing the world today. Historically, these issues have been treated in isolation, but today there is a growing appreciation that they are interlinked and connected such that changes to one influence the others. For example, boosting industrial production to improve living standards and create jobs could worsen pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, not only do these challenges need to be addressed quickly, but they must also be addressed together. A lack of understanding of these linkages means that policymakers are paralyzed, which could have devastating consequences. For every year of delay, 9 million people die ahead of their life expectancy because of air pollution—this number accounts for 16% of all premature deaths worldwide.1GBD 2015 Risk Factors CollaboratorsGlobal, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015.Lancet. 2016; 388: 1659-1724Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (2482) Google Scholar There are also economic implications: air pollution causes 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) losses in low- and middle-income countries and a welfare reduction equal to 6.2% of global economic output.2Landrigan P.J. Fuller R. Issue no. 29: The impact of pollution on planetary health: emergence of an underappreciated risk factor. United Nations Environment Programme, 2015https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/perspective-series/issue-no-29-impact-pollution-planetary-health-emergenceGoogle Scholar Similarly, climate change is thought to be one of the primary drivers of global poverty, second only to development. Even if inclusive and climate-informed development were implemented today, 3–16 million people would still be threatened by poverty as a result of climate change in 2030.3Rozenberg J. Hallegatte S. The impacts of climate change on poverty in 2030 and the potential from rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development. Policy Research working paper; no. WPS 7483. The World Bank, 2015Crossref Google Scholar Technical solutions for maximizing the synergies between two of these issues or among all three issues have been increasingly explored by researchers. One general solution is the development of renewable energy, which is intrinsically characterized by the simultaneous achievement of economic development, environmental improvement, and climate neutrality.4Cameron A. Stuart C. A guidebook to the green economy. Issue 1: green economy, green growth, and low-carbon development—history, definitions and a guide to recent publications. UNDESA: UN Division for Sustainable Development, 2012Google Scholar However, sometimes even when technical solutions are clear, political actions and societal changes fail to address the three issues together. It is of great importance to identify the obstacles that exist between technical findings and political action. Here, we highlight these obstacles and how some local governments are beginning to implement policy strategies to boost local economies while avoiding the negative impacts of development. We present four rules of thumb for choosing a path through entangled policies. A significant obstacle to decision makers is the need to address each grand challenge on different scales and in different time frames. Although studies suggest that certain clear pre-considerations should be taken when developing long-term carbon mitigation policies to avoid carbon lock-in investment and achieve cost-effective development,5Wang C. Ye M. Cai W. Chen J. The value of a clear, long-term climate policy agenda: a case study of China’s power sector using a multi-region optimization model.Appl. Energy. 2014; 125: 276-288Crossref Scopus (44) Google Scholar it is often difficult to convince those decision makers (whose major concerns are near-term economic and job growth) that relatively high expenditure associated with carbon-mitigation policies today will result in much higher cost savings in the future. For example, many national and regional administrations reshape their economies every 5 years. Most governments issue national environmental plans each decade. Climate-change policy is even more long term, and today’s emissions will have consequences for centuries to come. The result is conflicting policies. Before 2012, local governments in China achieved the national target of reducing the poverty-stricken population at the cost of the environment. As a result, China’s population-weighted national average particulate-matter (PM2.5) concentration increased from 40.3 ug/m3 in 2000 to 43.6 ug/m3 in 2017 (Figure 1), well surpassing the World Health Organization’s interim target PM2.5 concentration level (35 ug/m3). On the other hand, some long-term measures, for example, reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), are critical for addressing climate change; however, avoiding deforestation and degradation could threaten the livelihood of 1.2 billion people who depend to varying degrees on forests, including many forest-dependent indigenous people in Africa.8Forest Carbon Partnership Facilityhttp://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/fcp/Google Scholar, 9Sena K. REDD and indigenous peoples’ rights in Africa.Indig. Aff. 2011; 1/09: 10-19Google Scholar Therefore, the different scales and time frames used for decision making have created trade-offs among the grand challenges.Figure 1Interwoven Grand Challenges in ChinaShow full captionChina’s Human Development Index (green)6United Nations Development ProgrammeHuman development reports.2018http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/137506#Google Scholar increased by 27%, and it CO2 per capita (black)7The World BankCO2 emissions (metric tons per capita).2019https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?view=chartGoogle Scholar increased by 180%, where the PM2.5 (blue) plateaued between 2000 and 2017.View Large Image Figure ViewerDownload (PPT) China’s Human Development Index (green)6United Nations Development ProgrammeHuman development reports.2018http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/137506#Google Scholar increased by 27%, and it CO2 per capita (black)7The World BankCO2 emissions (metric tons per capita).2019https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?view=chartGoogle Scholar increased by 180%, where the PM2.5 (blue) plateaued between 2000 and 2017. Furthermore, governance is fragmented. Different authorities manage the economy, environment, and actions related to climate change. Few joint assessments or plans have been implemented to address climate, land, energy, water, and development. This approach has resulted in conflicts among policies. For example, China has demolished and rebuilt many buildings to stimulate the economy, but there have been extremely high knock-on costs in terms of CO2 emissions and water consumption.10Cai W. Wan L. Jiang Y. Wang C. Lin L. Short-lived buildings in China: impacts on water, energy, and carbon emissions.Environ. Sci. Technol. 2015; 49: 13921-13928Crossref PubMed Scopus (61) Google Scholar International trade helps countries promote residents’ quality of life in some ways; however, research has found that trade has also resulted in the invasion of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta, reduced biodiversity, and caused massive ecological damage, mainly in agriculture, in the US, Australia, China, and Japan.11Liu J. Hull V. Batistella M. DeFries R. Dietz T. Fu F. Hertel T.W. Izaurralde R.C. Lambin E.F. Li S. et al.Framing sustainability in a telecoupled world.Ecol. Soc. 2013; 18: 26Crossref Scopus (591) Google Scholar Sometimes even when managing a single issue, different departments play different but entangled roles. For example, water has been managed by different departments for a long time in China. Water resources are managed by the Ministry of Water Resources, whereas the water supply and draining system are managed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and water-pollution problems are managed by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The incoherent implementation of national policies, the conflicting interests among these ministries, and their lack of cooperation actually weaken the effective management of water resources and significantly increase administrative transaction costs. Growing income inequality leads to cognitive differences among different income groups, which adds to the difficulties of simultaneously addressing the three aforementioned challenges. In India, the bottom 50% income share dropped from 20% in the 1980s to 15% in 2012, whereas the top 10% income share increased rapidly from 30% to 55%. This disparity is even more significant in China—the income growth rate of the top 10% was 1.7 times and 3 times that of the middle 40% and the bottom 50%, respectively, from 1980 to 2015. Poor people tend to be less concerned about the environment than the rich, and a similar effect occurs for local decision makers.12Franzen A. Meyer R. Environmental attitudes in cross-national perspective: a multilevel analysis of the ISSP 1993 and 2000.Eur. Sociol. Rev. 2009; 26: 219-234Crossref Scopus (379) Google Scholar For example, people usually prefer cheap fossil fuels over expensive clean energy. In Sub-Saharan Africa, farmers are choosing to manage smaller plots of land more intensively to boost yields and incomes, yet this degrades the soil more rapidly. For decision makers, the benefits of increasing the number of jobs are noticed more easily and more quickly than the benefits of a cleaner environment made possible by environmental action. These immanent perceptions will influence the public’s behavior and policy preferences, causing people to give short-term financial benefits too much weight and other, environmentally sensitive issues too little attention. This fragmentary approach is not restricted to politics and society. Science too has long operated in silos and lacked integration, resulting in the slow development of scientific and technological solutions. Thus far, interdisciplinary research that covers all three challenges is not seen as mainstream, so the interrelationships that exist among the challenges remain unclear. The quantitative impact of rapid and deep decarbonization on poverty is still implicit; current scientific research has also not elucidated the climate effects of purifying the air, particularly the link between aerosols and regional climate.13Samset B.H. How cleaner air changes the climate.Science. 2018; 360: 148-150Crossref PubMed Scopus (20) Google Scholar Considerable uncertainty exists regarding the future spatial and temporal distribution of conventional pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions as a result of the uncertainty regarding social and technological development, thus making it difficult to adopt effective mitigation strategies. Additionally, maximizing the synergies and minimizing the trade-offs of climate mitigation and non-climate sustainable objectives can be region or sector specific, making it difficult to replicate successful solutions elsewhere. Even when we agree that low-carbon development is the way forward, different regions or sectors still need to formulate their own policy pathways considering their different socio-economic and technical circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all, global solution. A clean high-tech economy has unique characteristics, including low energy consumption, low pollution levels, low emission levels, and high economic added value. The success of the Cambridge Science Park (UK) is a typical example. Since its establishment in 1970, it has transformed Cambridge from a market town with a world-class university into a world leading technology hotspot and powerful growth engine. Nowadays, the development of a clean high-tech economy is becoming a trend around the world. Guizhou, a remote and landlocked region in China, has recently become the fastest economically growing province in China through the development of its “big data” industries. Ten years ago, this record was held by Inner Mongolia, whose pillar industry of coal mining resulted in severe environmental deterioration and the failure of sustainable economic growth. This new development model keeps economy and jobs growing and dramatically reduces the environmental and climate footprint. Integrating governing authorities makes it possible to address these grand challenges all together—and this is already an emerging trend worldwide. In France and New Zealand, issues regarding environmental protection and climate change are overseen by one department, which benefits the cooperation between and coordination of projects and financial management. In the UK, the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) project was launched in 2010 and addresses poverty alleviation and ecosystem management together. In a landmark decision in March 2018, China recommended managing air, water, and soil pollution together. The climate-change department was then moved from the National Development and Reform Commission into the new Ministry of Ecology and Environment. Integrating authorities makes it possible to achieve goals regarding the environment in a more efficient way, reducing the number of disasters leading to poverty and reducing government expenditure, which relieves the tax burden. Comprehensive planning for development, the environment, and the climate is also emerging as a result of the integration of authorities, e.g., the UK’s 25-year environment plan, the 2035 Beautiful China Initiative, and the transnational environmental governance of the EU. These practices using longer time frames and larger scales help improve economic efficiency and reduce externalities. It is necessary to further popularize this notion of functional integration and comprehensive planning on a larger scale in other regions, especially inside or among developing countries, to avoid detours and to realize the advantages of leapfrogging. Increasing the income share of middle and bottom classes and therefore reducing income inequality could help raise the awareness of protecting the environment and addressing climate change. Tax policy, for example, can be used to adjust the income-distribution pattern. Professional and vocational training can also be provided to enable more low-income individuals to enjoy economic development opportunities and employment opportunities during the low-carbon transition. Other factors that influence government decision making and public choice, such as cognition of the environment, should also be considered. People’s perceptions and beliefs will change their behavior. Studies have also shown that education plays an important role in enhancing people’s attitudes and behaviors. It is necessary to increase investment in environmental education to change human behavior and make us a more responsible species. To better understand the mechanisms behind the synergies and trade-offs in the climate-environment-poverty nexus, promoting interdisciplinary research in coupled social-economic and natural systems is essential. A shift toward funding for problem-oriented research rather than traditional discipline-oriented research is necessary to make this a reality. Successful and timely development of technological solutions will require north-south and south-south cooperation rather than simply relying on technology transfer, as emphasized by the Paris Agreement. There have been some good examples of achieving synergies among the grand challenges of poverty alleviation, environment protection, and climate mitigation. Although it can be difficult to replicate and apply regional solutions to other regions, it is still important to share these practices and experiences, especially with developing countries. Detailed policies that facilitate this sharing of practices and experiences could include setting up specific national research programs or joint research-and-development taskforces that include north-south and south-south countries to identify technology and policy roadmaps that could enhance the ability to address the three challenges at once while considering each region’s or sector’s specific circumstances. Furthermore, specific forums (such as the poverty-environment-climate nexus research forum or the experience-sharing forum) could be organized with support from national governments or bilateral and multilateral funds. There is still a great deal to be done to enable us to address these grand challenges, but the window of opportunity is closing, and the economic and societal price of inaction is high. Only through implementing changes now—in the above-mentioned institutional, societal, scientific, and technological arenas—will we be able to address these grand challenges in an integrated way and avoid long-term damages for decades to come. The authors appreciate funds received from the National Social Science Foundation of China (no. 17ZDA077 ) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 71773062 ).