622170 From SDGs to Climate Change: Implementation Strategies for its Adaption and Mitigation (2 credits)

Lecturer: Dr Kensuke Fukushi; Dr Akio Takemoto, Dr Upalat Korwatanasakul, Dr Juan Pastor-Ivars

Course Description

Since the mid-20th century, humans have increased energy consumption and levels of greenhouse emissions. Such facts have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate, causing an alteration on a global scale. Climate change, with current global warming of 1.1°C and deviations in weather patterns, threatens people with food insecurity, flooding, diseases, extreme heat, displacement, ecosystem transformation, degradation, and the stress it places on political, economic, and social systems. Because of this, the WHO claims climate change is the greatest threat to humans in the 21st century. A response to climate change relies on mitigation, reducing climate change, and adaptation, fitting to current or expected change. In the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, nations agreed to keep warming well under 2.0 °C. With the COVID-19 pandemic, greenhouse gas emissions are forecasted to decline due to travel restrictions and economic deceleration. However, this temporary improvement will not interrupt climate change. Limiting warming to 1.5 °C would require halving emissions by 2030 and achieving near-zero emissions by 2050.

In 2015, countries adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 13: Climate Action, which aims to take urgent action to prevent climate change and its impacts. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be seen as ‘antibodies’ against climate change: threatened by its effects but the remedy to reduce them. The SDGs framework interconnects society’s prosperity, human health, quality education, energy savings, wildlife conservation, circular economy, cities’ sustainability, correct usage of natural resources, world peace, among others. Therefore, SDGs should be synchronized between them to achieve Goal 13. While some SDGs goals will act as a mitigating mechanism for climate change, others will become indicators of how appropriately we adapt to it. If so, the SDGs framework will become a useful tool to alleviate climate change not only until the 2030 Agenda but for the rest of the 21st century. In this course, we will address Goal 13 as a focal point for the mitigation and adaption of climate change interconnecting the rest of the SDGs, keeping in mind the Goals complexity.

Course Objectives and Learning Goals

This course aims to explore knowledge on the relationships between climate change actions and multiple SDGs. The course also examines scientific, social, and political ways to prevent climate change. First, the course overviews the international policy framework on climate change and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Second, it examines positive and negative social, economic, and environmental impacts caused by climate change mitigation and adaptation actions at the national and local levels. The positive effects extend to various areas, such as economic growth, development of infrastructure, enhancement of cost-effectiveness, and health benefits. In contrast, inequity, energy poverty, job loss, biodiversity degradation, and food insecurity have emerged as negative impacts. Third, the course provides an opportunity to understand how climate policy interventions can sustainably transform society by enhancing synergies and reducing trade-offs with socio-economic impacts.

The course is comprised of the three Blocks as follows:

1. Block 1: Giving an overview of the climate science and policy framework on climate change and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: What is the scientific evidence of climate change? What is the Paris Agreement? What is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?

2. Block 2: Identifying synergies and trade-offs between climate change actions and social, economic, and environmental impacts, and finding solutions: What are the social, economic, and environmental impacts related to climate change mitigation and adaptation actions? How do specific climate change actions influence SDGs? How can climate actions enhance synergies and reduce trade-offs between climate change actions and social, economic, and environmental impacts?

3. Block 3: Designing climate change actions that have co-benefits on the SDGs: How can the climate policy be designed to contribute to the SDGs in a selected city or country?