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Lamb_2020_Environ._Res._Lett._15_113006.pdf (2.86 MB)

What are the social outcomes of climate policies? A systematic map and review of the ex-post literature

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posted on 2023-06-10, 00:49 authored by William F Lamb, Miklós Antal, Katerina Bohnenberger, Lina I Brand-Correa, Finn Müller-Hansen, Michael Jakob, Jan C Minx, Kilian Raiser, Laurence WilliamsLaurence Williams, Benjamin SovacoolBenjamin Sovacool
It is critical to ensure climate and energy policies are just, equitable and beneficial for communities, both to sustain public support for decarbonisation and address multifaceted societal challenges. Our objective in this article is to examine the diverse social outcomes that have resulted from climate policies, in varying contexts worldwide, over the past few decades. We review 203 ex-post climate policy assessments that analyse social outcomes in the literature. We systematically and comprehensively map out this work, identifying articles on carbon, energy and transport taxes, feed-in-tariffs, subsidies, direct procurement policies, large renewable deployment projects, and other regulatory and market-based interventions. We code each article in terms of their studied social outcomes and effects, with a focus on electricity access, energy affordability, community cohesion, employment, distributional and equity issues, livelihoods and poverty, procedural justice, subjective well-being and drudgery. Our analysis finds that climate and energy policies often fall short of delivering positive social outcomes. Nonetheless, across country contexts and policy types there are manifold examples of climate policymaking that does deliver on both social and climate goals. This requires attending to distributive and procedural justice in policy design, and making use of appropriate mechanisms to ensure that policy costs and benefits are fairly shared. We emphasize the need to further advance ex-post policy assessments and learn about what policies work for a just transition.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Environmental Research Letters

ISSN

1748-9326

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Issue

11

Volume

15

Page range

1-28

Article number

a113006

Department affiliated with

  • SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2021-09-02

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2021-09-02

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2021-09-01

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