Abstract
To limit global temperature increases to ‘well below 2 ºC’, it is necessary that current national commitments to reduce emissions are increased, and these commitments are implemented. The identification of local development benefits from climate change mitigation is a possible motivating factor to achieve this. However, there is a lack of practical examples of how climate change mitigation and development priorities can be integrated in national planning processes, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This work considers two questions i) What are the factors that have to be considered when developing a plan integrating GHG reductions with local development goals?; and ii) How do you structure a process to reach a consensus about the plan itself?. It does this by conceptualising the integration of climate mitigation and development benefits as a policy intervention. As a case study, a national planning process that integrated climate change mitigation with improvements to air quality and human health in Nigeria is conceptualised, ex-post, as an intervention theory model. The key factors identified include the importance of tailoring the planning process to the national context of how development priorities are identified and then used in the allocation of national budgets. In particular, assessments undertaken within the planning process, of emission reductions, and development of implementation pathways provided necessary information on how climate mitigation actions contribute to national development priorities. Additionally, the importance of structuring these assessments within a planning processes that also engaged key stakeholders to allow the information produced by the assessments to be informed, and acted upon, by those responsible for mitigation in each key sector is also highlighted. Finally, approaches for the use of intervention theory as a conceptual framework to design a planning process, ex-ante, are discussed, to further optimise the integration of development priorities into climate change planning.
Highlights
In 2015, almost all countries committed to limit global average temperature increases to ‘well below 2 oC’ (United Nations, 2015)
There are a large range of sustainable development benefits that could be achieved from climate change mitigation actions, including improving human health, economic growth, energy access and security, biodiversity, etc. (Haines et al, 2017; Jakob and Steckel, 2016)
Available practical examples are generally from high-income countries (Workman et al, 2019) as opposed to low- and middle-income countries which have made a small historic contribution to global greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions (UNEP, 2019a), and where there is the largest opportunity for local development benefits to motivate and facilitate actions to reduce GHGs (Kuylenstierna et al, 2020)
Summary
In 2015, almost all countries committed to limit global average temperature increases to ‘well below 2 oC’ (United Nations, 2015). The process for the development of Nigeria’s National SLCP Plan provides a useful case study of how climate change mitigation and local development priorities can be linked because exposure to air pollution is the largest environmental health risk globally making it a development priority for many countries This includes Nigeria, which experiences an estimated 114 thousand premature deaths due to air pollution in 2017, of which 70 thousand were infant (< 5 years) deaths (Stanaway et al, 2018). There is a large overlap between the sources of the emissions causing climate change (GHGs and SLCPs) and air pollution (Crippa et al, 2018) This overlap means that there is a substantial opportunity to design and implement strategies that simultaneously improve air quality and human health locally while mitigating climate change (e.g. Nakarmi et al, 2020; Stohl et al, 2015; UNEP, 2019b)
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