Issues of Equity and Social Inclusion in Climate Action: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report 2023

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the final synthesis report of its Sixth Assessment Report in February 2023. This report aimed to summarize the information and conclusions in an easily understandable language for climate stakeholders at the international and regional levels. It worked to diagnose current conditions, trends, expected future developments, required responses, and the necessary steps in the near future. The report pointed out that the unprecedented global warming phenomenon in Earth's history is primarily due to greenhouse gas emissions from various human activities. Despite the plans and actions announced by countries worldwide, there remains a very large gap in preparedness, which will continue to widen unless the international community takes swift action and implements stringent measures to stop greenhouse gas emissions.

Referring to the published synthesis report, it indicated that the economic impacts attributed to climate change are increasingly affecting people's livelihoods, causing economic and societal consequences. The economic damages resulting from climate change were revealed in sectors vulnerable to climate change, with regional impacts on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, and tourism. People's livelihoods have been affected by changes in agricultural productivity, impacts on human health and food security, destruction of homes and infrastructure, and loss of property and income, with negative effects on gender equality and social justice. A number of studies have indicated that human-induced climate change increases the intensity of heavy rainfall associated with tropical cyclones. Wildfires have affected many regions, impacting communities, economic activities, and health.

In cities and settlements, the impacts of climate change on critical infrastructure lead to losses and damages in water and food systems, and economic activities in general, with effects extending beyond the region directly impacted by climate hazards. As a result, the livelihoods of individuals and communities are affected through changes in agricultural productivity, which in turn impacts human health and food security, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, the loss of property and income, and the growing gap in gender equality and social justice.

Global efforts to address climate change, since the Fifth Assessment Report of 2022, have been accelerated by increasing public awareness and the growing diversity of stakeholders. Social movements have emerged as driving forces in certain regions of the world, often building on previous local initiatives, including movements led by indigenous peoples, youth movements, human rights movements, gender advocacy movements, and climate litigation, all of which work to raise awareness. In some cases, these movements have influenced the outcomes and ambitions related to climate issues. Actions that prioritize fairness, climate justice, social justice, and inclusion have led to more sustainable outcomes, common benefits, reduced inequalities, supported transformational change, and enhanced resilience to climate change. It is clear that there is an immediate need for adaptation responses to mitigate increasing climate risks, particularly by focusing on the most vulnerable community groups. Therefore, fairness, inclusion, and just transitions are key to progress in adapting to climate change and the maximum societal aspirations for accelerated mitigation through adopting adaptation and mitigation measures across sectors and regions that prioritize fairness, climate justice, rights-based approaches, social justice, and inclusivity. These factors inevitably lead to more sustainable outcomes, reducing spatial and societal inequalities, supporting transformational change, and enhancing climate-resilient development.

Furthermore, redistribution policies across sectors and regions that protect the poor and vulnerable, social safety nets, fairness, inclusion, and just transitions at all levels can enable deeper societal aspirations and address inequalities in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, particularly in sectors such as education, hunger, poverty, gender equality, and energy access. The report highlights that mitigation efforts within the broader development context can increase the pace, depth, and scale of emission reductions. Additionally, fairness, inclusion, and just transitions at all levels enable deeper societal ambitions for rapid mitigation and climate action.

The increasing complexity of risks, such as rising food prices, reduced household income, and health and climate-related malnutrition (especially maternal malnutrition and child malnutrition), along with deaths due to low or insufficient adaptation, is evident. Regions and people experiencing significant development constraints are highly vulnerable to climate risks. To enhance adaptation outcomes for the most vulnerable groups within and across countries and regions, it is essential to adopt an approach centered on fairness, inclusivity, and rights-based approaches. The report noted that 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly affected by climate change.

The report also points out that areas facing poverty, governance challenges, limited access to essential services and resources, conflicts, and high levels of climate-sensitive livelihoods (such as smallholder farmers, herders, and fishing communities) are particularly vulnerable at the highest levels. In such cases, many risks can be mitigated through adaptation. Existing development challenges that cause severe vulnerability are exacerbated by historical and ongoing inequalities, such as colonization. For many indigenous and local communities, vulnerability is further compounded by inequities and marginalization related to gender, race, low income, or a combination of these factors.

The report emphasized that meaningful participation, comprehensive planning that incorporates cultural values, indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, and scientific knowledge helps to address adaptation gaps and avoid maladaptation. Such flexible pathways can encourage bold actions in a timely manner. Integrating climate adaptation into social protection programs, including cash transfers and public work programs, would increase the capacity to adapt to climate change, particularly when supported by basic services and infrastructure.

Fairness, inclusion, transitions, and broad meaningful participation of all relevant stakeholders in decision-making at all levels enable deeper societal ambitions for rapid mitigation and broader climate action, build social trust, support transformational change, and ensure equitable sharing of benefits and burdens.

Fairness remains a central element in the United Nations climate system, despite changes in the differentiation between countries over time and challenges in assessing fair shares. Ambitious mitigation pathways involve significant and sometimes disruptive changes in the economic structure, with wide distributional consequences within and between countries, including the redistribution of income and employment as societies transition from high-emission activities to low-emission ones. While some jobs may be lost, the transition to low emissions can also open opportunities for skill enhancement and job creation.

It can also help expand equitable access to finance, technologies, and governance that facilitate mitigation and consider climate justice through the fair sharing of benefits and burdens, particularly for vulnerable countries and communities. In this regard, the report highlighted that development priorities among countries also reflect different starting points and contexts, and thus, the enabling conditions for shifting development pathways toward increased sustainability will vary, leading to different needs.

Implementing the principles of a just transition through collective and participatory decision-making processes is an effective way to integrate fairness principles into public policies at all levels, depending on national conditions. Many countries have established transitional committees, task forces, and national policies to address these issues.

The report highlighted that many economic and regulatory tools have been effective in reducing emissions, with practical experience helping to design these tools to improve them while addressing distributional goals and social acceptance. Additionally, the design of behavioral interventions, including how choices are presented to consumers, works synergistically with price signals, making the mix more effective. People with higher socioeconomic status disproportionately contribute to emissions and are more likely to reduce emissions, such as investors, consumers, role models, and professionals. There are options for designing tools and means such as taxes, subsidies, pricing, and consumption-based approaches, complemented by regulatory tools to reduce high-emission consumption, while improving fairness and social well-being.

Behavioral and lifestyle changes can help end-users in the final stages of the consumption chain adopt low greenhouse gas options by adopting emission-reducing policies, infrastructure, and technologies with multiple shared benefits for community welfare. Expanding equitable access to finance, technologies, and local and international capabilities can act as an incentive to accelerate mitigation and shift development pathways in low-income contexts. Therefore, eradicating extreme poverty, energy poverty, and providing decent living standards for everyone in these regions falls within the context of achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the short term, which can be achieved without significant increases in global emissions. Technology development, transfer, capacity-building, and financing can support developing countries/regions transitioning to low-emission transport systems, contributing to shared benefits.

Climate-resilient development progresses when actors work in equitable, fair, and enabling ways to reconcile differing interests, values, and global perspectives toward fair and inclusive outcomes. When mitigation and adaptation are implemented together, taking disparities into account, many shared benefits and synergies for human well-being, as well as ecosystem health and the health of the planet, can be achieved. The report emphasized the strong link between sustainable development, vulnerability, and climate risks, highlighting that social protection networks supporting climate adaptation have strong shared benefits with development goals such as education, poverty reduction, gender integration, gender equality, and food security.

Land restoration also contributes to mitigation and adaptation synergies through improved ecosystem services, positive economic returns, shared benefits for poverty reduction, and improved livelihoods. Trade-offs can be evaluated and minimized by focusing on capacity-building, financing, technology transfer, investments, governance, development, and gender-specific and other social justice considerations, with meaningful participation from indigenous peoples, local communities, and vulnerable populations.

The report further noted that effective local, national, and subnational climate institutions, such as experienced bodies and coordination efforts, enable joint actions across multiple scales, building consensus on action among diverse interests, and informing strategic settings. This requires adequate institutional capacity at all levels, often reducing vulnerabilities and climate risks through laws, policies, participatory processes, and carefully designed and implemented interventions that address context-specific inequalities, such as those based on gender, race, disability, age, location, and income. Policy support is influenced by indigenous peoples, businesses, civil society actors, including youth, labor, media, and local communities, and effectiveness is enhanced through partnerships between various groups within society.

The increasing number of such cases in some developed countries contrasts with fewer instances in some developing countries. In some cases, this has influenced the outcomes and ambition of addressing climate issues. Implementing mitigation and adaptation together, aligned with broader 2030 SDG objectives, would lead to multiple benefits for human well-being, ecosystem health, and planetary health. The scope of these positive interactions is critical in the near-term climate policy landscape across regions, sectors, and systems.

For instance, mitigation actions in agriculture, forestry, and other land uses (AFOLU) in land use and forestry, when implemented sustainably, can provide widespread greenhouse gas emission reductions and removals, benefiting biodiversity, food security, wood supply, and other ecosystem services, but cannot fully compensate for delayed mitigation actions in other sectors. Similarly, adaptation measures in land, oceans, and ecosystems can provide broad benefits for food security, nutrition, health, well-being, ecosystems, and biodiversity. Urban systems, as interconnected sites, are critically important for climate-resilient development; urban policies that implement multiple interventions can yield gains in adaptation or mitigation with fairness and human well-being.

Integrated policy packages can enhance the ability to incorporate equity, gender equality, and justice considerations. Cross-sectoral consistent policies and planning can maximize synergies and avoid or reduce disparities between mitigation and adaptation. This will require effective work across all the mentioned areas with political commitment in the short term and social follow-up in areas such as cooperation, finance, more integrated sectoral policies, support, and actions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body responsible for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its effects, and risks, and to propose strategies for adapting to climate change and mitigating its impacts. In the same year, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the decision by WMO and UNEP to establish the IPCC. Currently, the IPCC has 195 member countries, and thousands of individuals from around the world contribute to its work.

Regarding the assessment reports, the scientific committee members of the IPCC volunteer their time to review thousands of scientific papers, summarizing what is known about the causes of climate change, its future risks, and how strategies for adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks. The IPCC’s assessments provide governments at all levels with scientific information that can be used to develop their climate policies. The IPCC assessments are key inputs in international negotiations aimed at addressing climate change. The objectivity and transparency of the IPCC reports are ensured by their drafting and review in multiple stages. Each IPCC assessment report consists of contributions from the three working groups and a synthesis report, which integrates the findings of the working groups and any special reports prepared during the assessment cycle.