Economic Equity In The Climate Transition

There is an urgent need to accelerate the green transition to reach international climate goals and help tackle the consequences of extreme weather events such as floods and heatwaves. But new policies and measures are raising concerns around issues including the cost of living, the uneven distribution of costs and benefits, and impacts on employment and economic development.

Ultimately, this could slow both environmental and socioeconomic progress, according to Accelerating an Equitable Transition: A Data-Driven Approach, a report from the Forum in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group. Ensuring the energy transition doesn’t exacerbate existing economic inequities and leave society more fragmented and polarized is vital, it says.

The report says the current toolkit available to policymakers and businesses won’t result in this equitable transition. To help, it groups countries into six ‘archetypes’, seen in the graphic below, to help stakeholders assess the relative degree of exposure of workers, consumers, and small business to equity risks that different climate mitigation actions can intensify.