IGES Recommendations for HLPF 2019

Introduction

The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) is an international environmental policy research institution with offices throughout Asia and headquarters in Hayama, Japan. IGES partners with governments, international organisations, local governments, businesses and civil society, with the aim of facilitating a global transition to a sustainable future. IGES believes that such a transition requires integration across multiple issues and inclusion of diverse stakeholders. As outlined in this set of key priorities for HLPF 2019, integration and inclusion are also central to achieving the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

1. Integration Across Issues

Integrating SDGs and NDCs:
A critical entry point for the integration of climate and other development priorities are the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). IGES research on interlinkages between SDGs has demonstrated the importance of the social and economic dimensions in achieving climate targets and the SDGs within a wide range of countries: there is significant scope for integrating the SDGs and NDCs (Zhou and Moinuddin, 2017; Kainuma et al., 2017).

Using “lifestyle carbon footprints” for emission reductions:
One area where integration between climate and development goals is urgently needed is the promotion of sustainable consumption patterns and lifestyle choices. IGES and its partners have developed the novel concept of “lifestyle carbon footprints” to highlight levels of emission reductions (exceeding 80-90%) needed to achieve the 1.5-degree target. Living within this 1.5-degree boundary requires policymakers to re-examine current growth paradigms and reform physical and social infrastructures that lock-in unsustainable consumption and production patterns (Akenji et al., 2019).

Integrating actions on air pollution and climate:
Another urgent area requiring action involves air pollution and climate change. IGES recently contributed to a multi-author study that identified 25 solutions that could help improve air quality for one billion people in Asia while protecting the climate from near- and long-term warming (CCAC and UNEP, 2018). A related follow-up study pointed to necessary institutional reforms, sensitisation strategies, and concrete activities for incorporating actions into NDCs that control air pollution (Akahoshi et al., 2019).

Supporting integrated land management:
IGES has also been promoting efforts to support integrated land management that delivers on multiple economic, social and environmental goals. IGES studies have pointed to a need for innovative governance arrangements and institutions at landscape and larger geographic scales to control GHGs, build adaptive capacity, and protect biodiversity and ecosystem services (Scheyvens et al., 2017; Takahashi, et al., 2018). These governance arrangements need to open opportunities for meaningful stakeholder engagement; in addition to contributing to empowerment and ownership among local actors, such participation also helps to ensure policies are tailored to local needs (Scheyvens et al., 2017). Doing so frequently requires looking across national boundaries—to highlight an area of growing IGES and partner work—for facilitating regional adaptation planning (Shaw et al., 2016).

2. Inclusion of Stakeholders

Engaging local and regional governments for inclusive and sustainable cities:
Successfully integrating climate and other development priorities requires the inclusion of diverse stakeholders, especially in cities. IGES work with local and regional governments (LRGs) in Japan and throughout ASEAN member states has shown that tailoring the SDGs to local contexts is essential yet remains challenging in many respects (Teoh, 2018). These challenges can be addressed by using existing platforms to share experiences of “frontrunner” cities on SDG planning. It can also be facilitated by encouraging LRGs to use the common language of the SDGs in developing Voluntary Local Reviews (VLR) (paralleling the Voluntary National Reviews) (Nakano et al., 2018; Kataoka et al., 2018; Ota et al., 2018). Creating a “VLR Lab” with tools and appropriate training can be a critical step in efforts to make cities more inclusive and sustainable.

Recognising the central governments’ role in vertical and horizontal policy integration:
IGES collaboration with ASEAN LRGs has shown that central governments play a critical role in supporting vertical and horizontal policy integration, developing enabling frameworks, issuing national guidance, and utilising collected data, all of which are instrumental for ensuring more effective policymaking at the local level (Teoh, 2018).

Mobilising and circulating local resources:
Outcomes of peer-learning sessions with over 15 different LRGs, focused on approaches for improving regional balance of payments, have demonstrated that the strategic mobilisation and circulation of local resources can greatly contribute to guiding a shift to more sustainable lifestyle and business models.

Engaging businesses:
Working on the SDGs and climate change is not just for governments. IGES research on many variations of integrated approaches to climate change and sustainable development (such as integrated transport and waste management) suggests that businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and cooperatives, also need to be included in many of the above-mentioned efforts to align different interests around integrated solutions (Elder and King, 2018; Zusman and Amanuma, 2018).

Making business inclusive:
While businesses need to be included in this process, they must also strive to be more inclusive. A recent jointly published study demonstrates companies’ efforts to promote diversity management, which can help contribute to delivery of the SDGs (Ueno et al., 2018). Diversity management can create innovation and build a competitive advantage by maximising employees’ diverse abilities (GCNJ and IGES, 2019). Furthermore, inclusion of varied talents provides an important channel to operationalise the concept of "leave no one behind" in the workplace.

Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment:
A cornerstone of diversity management is gender equality and women’s empowerment. To promote gender equality, supportive legal systems are needed. Companies should comply with relevant laws and regulations, put their gender equality policies into practice, and address unconscious biases in the workplace. Companies should also aim to promote gender equality in the marketplace and community. There are often challenges in promoting inclusion for persons with disabilities, foreign workers, and others in vulnerable situations. In addition, understanding the importance of diversity and inclusion, and promotion of work-style reforms for accommodating different workers, remain an operational imperative (GCNJ and IGES, 2019).

Broadening women’s access to climate finance:
There is also a need to make climate finance more gender inclusive, in order to better achieve environmental and social goals. IGES research has demonstrated that women have a vital role to play in building resilience to and mitigating climate change. Harnessing their energy will require making climate institutions, policies, and projects more gender-responsive (Lee and Zusman, 2019).

Assisting low-income populations and small businesses:
At the same time, there are multiple opportunities to mainstream climate change into efforts aimed at assisting low-income populations and small businesses with access to existing financial systems. A survey of central banks and financial regulators from 19 countries that IGES helped prepare shows there are four different types of approaches—provide, promote, protect, and prevent—to ensure climate change does not exacerbate poverty and that appropriate low carbon technologies reach the bottom-of-the-pyramid (AFI, 2019).

Pursuing a comprehensive approach to environmental issues in SDGs:
Many of the above messages can contribute to achieving both climate targets and the SDGs. A number of these messages apply not only to potential synergies between climate and the SDGs but also to the social and environmental goals more widely. A recently published ADB survey of 15 countries in Asia (to which IGES contributed) suggested that there is some danger that environmental issues (beyond climate) are not receiving due consideration in SDG planning (ADB, 2019). The report also highlighted how building relevant stakeholders’ capacity to use a growing range of decision-making tools can strengthen the environmental dimensions of the SDGs (ADB, 2019).

3. Toward Transformative SDG Strategies

Moving “beyond GDP” as a scorecard for development:
GDP does not lead to the achievement of human well-being and prosperity within planetary boundaries (Akenji et al., 2018). There are a variety of alternative concepts. “Natural capital” is one concept that enables integrated approaches that cut across the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of development (Shivakoti 2019).

Noting that if SDGs are to “transform our world” then the level of ambition needs to be increased:
There is no need to wait until all of the data has been collected for all of the indicators before taking action. The issues addressed by SDGs are not really new, and many solutions have been proposed before and are readily available. Governments have powerful tools, including taxation and spending, allocation and enforcement of property rights, regulation and enforcement that provide an effective enabling environment to accelerate progress towards a more sustainable world. Voluntary actions are important, but are not likely to be sufficient (Elder and King, 2018).

July 6, 2019

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