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Accelerating Climate Action
Refocusing Policies through a Well-being Lens
This report builds on the OECD Well-being Framework and applies a new perspective
that analyses synergies and trade-offs between climate change mitigation and broader
goals such as health, education, jobs, as well as wider environmental quality and
the resources needed to sustain our livelihoods through time. This report takes an
explicitly political economy approach to the low-emissions transitions needed across
five economic sectors (electricity, heavy industry, residential, surface transport,
and agriculture) that are responsible for more than 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Synergies between emissions reduction and broader well-being objectives, such as reduced
air pollution and improved health, increase the incentives for early mitigation action.
At the same time, the impact of climate policies on issues such as the affordability
of energy and jobs need to be taken into account to counter growing economic and social
inequalities within and between countries. The report argues that reframing climate
policies using a well-being lens is necessary for making visible such synergies and
trade-offs; allowing decision-makers to increase the former and anticipate, manage
and minimise the latter. This requires us to rethink societal goals in terms of well-being,
reframe our measures of progress and refocus policy-making accordingly.
Published on September 20, 2019Also available in: French
Jointly organised with the Permanent Missions of the Czech Republic, Latvia and Lithuania to the United Nations, this high-level side event took place in the margins of the UN Climate Action Summit. It explored how to increase the incentives for early and ambitious mitigation action by systematically taking account of the synergies and trade-offs between mitigation actions and wider well-being objectives. OECD Secretary-General presented highlights from the report Accelerating Climate Action: Refocusing Policies Through a Well-Being Lens.