Conference Agenda

The emphasis on the indivisibility of different areas of sustainable development has reignited research interest in policy coherence and presented scholars with questions on how to identify, map, and address potential synergies and trade-offs between different SDGs. For instance, climate change policies (SDG13) have been argued to impact inequality aspects (SDG10), both in positive (i.e., reducing inequalities) and negative (i.e., increasing inequalities) ways. Achieving equitable climate action requires paying close attention to how climate change effects as well as climate action policy affects and may be affected by different sorts of inequality, including income inequalities and structural discrimination. At the same time, some scholars have warned against what they view as technocratic understandings of policy coherence that present coherency challenges as primarily administrative or technical conundrums. Pursuing policy coherence should, according to these scholars, instead be understood as a political endeavor whose goals, mechanisms, and implications warrant critical interrogation. From this perspective, achieving policy coherence is not necessarily desirable nor attainable. Rather, the quest for sustainable development may entail potentially irreconcilable ideas and interests that may not be transformed into ‘win-win’ synergies. This means that research on coherent implementation of climate action (SDG13) and reducing inequality (SDG10) should not stop at merely acknowledging the presence of interlinkages between the two areas; there is also a need to examine how states portray potential linkages and how they propose to address these.

Following this line of thought, this study explores how the parallel goals of acting on climate change and reducing inequalities are constructed in states’ submissions to the 2030 Agenda (the Voluntary National Reviews, VNRs) and the Paris Agreement (the Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs). It asks if and how states portray interactions between climate change and inequality, and which interventions they propose to address those interactions. In contrast to studies seeking to identify effects of climate policies on different measures of inequality, this study aims to make visible the ideas that underpin the construction of a climate-inequality nexus in states’ communications to the sustainable development and climate agendas, and how those ideas shape suggestions of how coherent implementation of SDG10 and SDG13 can be achieved.

Hydrogen energy, in particular green hydrogen, is increasingly regarded as an important energy carrier in Germany's transition strategy towards de-carbonizing high-energy-intensive industries. However, since in Germany the potential of renewable energy to produce green hydrogen is limited, policymakers are looking to establish international partnerships to produce green hydrogen outside of Germany and import it for national use - with a particular focus on countries in the Global South. Resource extraction from the Global South for use by populations and industries in the Global North is nothing new and in many cases deeply rooted in colonial hierarchies of power. Extracting and using energy from renewable resources to produce and subsequently export green hydrogen might differ from extracting natural gas or oil and offer an opportunity to leave behind carbon-locked pathways and unequal international relationships. However, nothing suggests that the current mode of partnership between the Global South and the Global North will change automatically when it comes to hydrogen production and export as the topic of energy justice in a (global) hydrogen economy remains analytically and empirically understudied. Based on a document analysis of available policies, reports and peer-reviewed articles as well as 12 expert interviews with stakeholders in the Global South, this paper explores two cases of potential hydrogen partnerships between Germany and Namibia and Germany and South Africa to illustrated narratives of perceived (local and global) benefits and risks in light of different hydrogen justice dimension, including distribution, procedural, recognition, intergenerational and epistemic justice. It concludes with lessons-learned for future research and policy on hydrogen justice in the context of a global energy transition system.

Our social and ecological systems face enduring and intersecting challenges such as climate change, land degradation, habitat and biodiversity loss, as well as structural and institutional discrimination and oppression. Dramatic shifts or transformations are needed to achieve sustainability in the face of such monumental challenges. There is growing recognition that social equity and justice must be considered within the discourses around such transformations, and that proposed changes to earth systems governance cannot be considered sustainable without these themes as core tenets. However, it remains unclear what a ‘just transformation’ looks like and how to achieve it.

In order to develop a baseline understanding of how social equity is integrated into sustainability transformations and guide this emerging field as it moves forward, we present the first systematic review of research that explicitly accounts for social equity and justice in sustainability transformations. Using keyword searches relating to justice, equity, sustainability, and transformations in academic databases, we reviewed literature across a range of social-ecological contexts including energy, food, and urban systems. We summarized how transformation and social equity were conceptualized in the 86 papers included in the final review, building theoretical foundations from the sustainability transformations and social justice literature. We also documented lessons on the practicalities of how to integrate justice considerations into transformative processes and activities. As such, we tried to chronicle who was involved in defining what is just or equitable and where it came into transformation processes, the actions taken to incorporate equity and justice, and whether evidence of the impacts of these actions existed.

Preliminary results revealed considerable variation and ambiguity in how the concepts of transformation and equity were employed, with a skew toward renewable energy transitions. Social equity mostly pertained to distributive and procedural concerns, and participatory and community-oriented interventions were often recommended as best practice. To respond to and plan for dramatic environmental change, we will require transformations in the ways earth systems are governed. As such, this review lays an important foundation for future scholarship and action that takes the next step towards a vision of sustainability that is just and equitable.

The global policy debate on just transitions is concerned with how to achieve a socially just and acceptable transition toward a climate-neutral and climate-resilient global economy. At the core of this debate is the assumption that efforts to combat environmental threats will not succeed unless combined with measures to reduce poverty and inequality. Our research explores the potential of carbon fiscal reforms, combining a carbon tax of levels deemed appropriate to achieve climate targets and the transfer of the revenues raised to vulnerable households. Public acceptability of climate policies is key to their implementation, but it depends to a large extent on the perceived fairness of such policies. Recycling revenues from carbon taxes directly back to vulnerable households is likely to gain the approval of a large number of people, especially in low-income countries where the high proportion of the population involved in the informal economy means that lowering income tax does not benefit the poorest and most vulnerable sections of society. But the targeting of these direct transfers needs careful consideration. In addition, the issue of common but differentiated responsibility indicates the need to consider redistribution across and not just within countries.
Here, we compute the first global study estimating the poverty and inequality effects of a carbon tax and different revenue recycling mechanisms. We combine macro (Environmentally extended Input-Output data) and household survey data for 168 countries. We simulate different scenarios looking at tax levels and design, national redistribution options (we model different options for such redistribution, including a lump sum payment, the use of current social assistance programs, and an expansion of social assistance following COVID-19) and international transfers based on different justice principles. We find that a carbon tax of US$50/tCO2 without revenue redistribution could increase global extreme poverty, but the redistribution of revenue from such a carbon tax could substantially reduce poverty by more than 100 million people, and reduce inequality, depending on the scenario. This shows that the way in which revenue from a carbon tax is redistributed greatly affects its impact, underlining the importance of policy design and targeting mechanisms. We also show that international transfers and international justice may have an even greater effect than national redistribution.