GREEN-WIN, TRANSrisk and CD-LINKS Joint Policy Day, 7 November 2018, Brussels, Belgium

GREEN-WIN, TRANSrisk and CD-LINKS co-organised a Joint Policy Day on 7^th November 2018, at the Royal Library Meeting Center in Brussels, Belgium.

The pre-Paris ambition to set up globally binding emission targets across countries has been given up in favour of an international regime in which global emission reduction is based on voluntary national contributions. As a consequence, climate win-win strategies that show that voluntary contributions are also beneficial in terms of other and shorter-term policy objectives at local, national and regional levels are now seen as cornerstones for climate action. This may include international climate clubs, national policies which generate environmental co-benefits, such as a reduction in air pollution, as well as carbon reduction policies amongst businesses of all sizes, civil society organisations and the general public.

The development of shorter-term, multiple-objective and bottom-up climate strategies is further strengthened by implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These provide 2030 targets for all aspects of human development, including climate, water, human health and well-being, social justice, poverty reduction and gender equality. Many of those SDGs, such as human well-being, poverty reduction and gender equality, are prerequisites for governments to address the climate problem - fostering SDGs in the short term will also provide climate benefits in the longer term. Conversely, implementation of the SDGs also illustrates possible trade-off between goals such as, for example, food security and emission reduction through biofuels.

Policy makers will need to understand the opportunities that this new framework presents, as well as the potential risks and uncertainties that lie in any proposed transition. The three EC Horizon 2020 projects featured have helped to address this need from complementary perspectives:

• GREEN-WIN focused on macro-economic and green business strategies that address both economic and climate goals, as well as the role finance plays within these.
• TRANSrisk studied risks and uncertainties within low emission transition pathways, and how transitions can be implemented in ways that are economically and sociably feasible.
• CD-LINKS explored the complex interplay between climate action and development, while simultaneously taking both global and national perspectives and thereby informing the design of complementary climate-development policies.

This policy day integrated these perspectives by collectively presenting the core findings of these projects together with their implications for climate policy.

The policy day consisted of 3 sessions with 3 x 10-minute presentations each, and presented the necessity of shorter-term multiple-objective and bottom-up climate strategies in the post-Paris Agreement era. More particularly, the workshop enabled policy makers to understand possible trade-offs and co-benefits between the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the potential risks and uncertainties that lie within low-carbon transitions.

Find below the event's agenda, as well as the presentations delivered by TRANSrisk partners Science Policy Research Unit - University of Sussex (SPRU), University of Graz (UniGraz), National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).