Climate Action

Extreme weather events and rising sea levels are having an increasing impact on human mobility especially within specific countries. In 2022 for example there were 32.6 million disaster-induced displacements around the world the highest figure seen in a decade and 70 percent of these took place in Asia Pacific regions. Policy actors need to anticipate and prepare for future human mobility patterns exacerbated by the effects of climate change to ensure that those who move have their human rights protected and can contribute meaningfully to the communities in which they arrive. Knowing how to anticipate invest and act on these futures now and needing to react to immediate priorities is however challenging. This paper outlines the promise of an anticipatory policy design approach that blends predictive analytics with qualitative foresight to provide the data and space that stakeholders need to effectively adapt and anticipate such events. The approach is introduced here as part of an initiative to analyse the scale and effects of migration to Ho Chi Minh City Viet Nam and Karachi Pakistan by 2050 as a result of the effects of climate change.

This policy brief focuses on the specific issue of disaster-response for three reasons. First the disaster-response cycle describes a well-documented pattern of fiscal surge and a crowding out effect over much needed adaptation investments; second climate vulnerability will only increase the volatility of this cycle in the future threatening both the prospects for sustainable and inclusive growth as well as an increasingly untenable trajectory for fiscal sustainability; and third because fiscal and financial capital flows to SIDS pose a challenge to the international financial architecture at large. The characteristics of the problem are known as well as the size of the fiscal and financial burdens; this is a problem that would not be a problem if the incentives for public and private capital flows were aligned in the right direction. This presents a challenge for the multilateral system at large.

Lack of fiscal space and the risk of sovereign debt distress remain key stumbling blocks to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries. Because the allocation of concessional funds and debt relief is essentially reserved to Low Income countries (LICs) official financing strategies and mechanisms to support developing countries provide insufficient support to non-LICs that may need and deserve special consideration concerning official financing. This paper discusses how official financial support allocation could consider countries’ vulnerabilities in critical dimensions with special reference to Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It explores how a multidimensional vulnerability indexes (MVI) could be used to expand the access of vulnerable countries to official financing including concessional financing and facilitate constructive debt restructuring when they need it.

The recent confluence of crises – the COVID-19 pandemic violent conflicts and climate change – has caused severe setbacks to central objectives of social development such as poverty eradication employment generation inequality reduction and building inclusive societies. People and societies in vulnerable situations have been hit the hardest by the converging crises. There are indications that shocks and crises are becoming ever more frequent severe and far-reaching – driven by the worsening effects of climate change the growing probability of pandemics growing geopolitical tensions and increasingly dense global networks of trade finance and transport. The effects of these converging crises can be severe and long-lasting as they may exhaust public and private response capacities cause economic scarring and trap people in a cycle of poverty. The World Social Report (WSR 2024) estimates that the potential cumulative global economic output loss could be over $50 trillion in the 2020–2030 period an indication of lost opportunities for social development. National social protection mechanisms can help to protect and further advance social development. These mechanisms by limiting the adverse impacts of shocks and crises especially on people in vulnerable situations and by supporting short-term recovery enhance longer-term resilience and foster sustainable and inclusive growth. Yet only 47 per cent of the global population and as few as 13 per cent in low-income countries are estimated to have access to at least one social protection benefit. At the same time converging crises may increase the cost of providing adequate and universal social protection while also depleting public financial resources. As a result many developing countries including most low- and lower-middle-income countries would find it difficult to achieve universal social protection by 2030 without additional international support

Climate change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a critical moment. It intensifies heatwaves droughts flooding wildfires and famines while threatening to submerge low-lying countries and cities and drive more species to extinction. It also threatens food supply and food security. The Climate Change 2023 Synthesis Report of the IPCC1 highlights the unequal contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions driven by unsustainable energy and land use as well as consumption patterns. Human-caused climate change is already impacting weather extremes globally leading to widespread adverse impacts especially affecting vulnerable communities. Tackling climate change demands a paradigm shift in mitigation and adaptation measures policy coherence institutional arrangements and coordination across national regional and local levels. Multilevel governance including commonly used strategies to operationalize the principle of subsidiarity is foundational to the global effort to combat climate change recognizing that effective action requires collaboration and coordination across various levels of government as well as with non-state actors. The principle of equity needs to be applied to the design of existing multilevel governance arrangements for addressing climate change particularly when costs and benefits are often highly concentrated. It emphasizes the importance of considering equity in decision-making processes and the allocation of resources to address climate change effectively and fairly.

Shocks and crises have become more frequent intense and widespread in an interconnected world affecting more people across the globe. Crises that might have previously remained relatively contained within a well-defined geographic region are now propagated rapidly through globally interconnected systems and networks in areas such as economics finance the environment and health. The 2008 Global Financial Crisis is an example of how financial shocks spread through the interconnected balance sheets of financial institutions causing havoc around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic also shows how national health systems were unable to absorb the effects of the virus which spread quickly through a dense global transportation network before disrupting highly concentrated economic and financial networks and killing more than 7 million people. Looking toward the Second World Summit for Social Development in 2025 this policy brief focuses on explaining how shocks turn into crises and how national policies supported by the international community can help counter shocks build resilience and advance social development objectives namely eradicating poverty promoting full and productive employment and fostering social inclusion in times of converging crises.

The rapid adoption of renewable energy technologies and the transition away from fossil fuels are vital for combating climate change. Achieving net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050 will require much faster deployment of clean energy technologies including wind turbines solar panels electric vehicles (EVs) and battery storage systems. This shift is fueling a sharp rise in demand for critical energy transition minerals such as copper cobalt lithium nickel and rare earth elements particularly as developing countries work to achieve universal energy access and diversify their economies. For instance an onshore wind power plant requires nine times more mineral inputs than a gas-fired plant of the same capacity while an EV needs six times more minerals than a conventional car. Additionally the average mineral requirement for new power generation capacity increased by 50 per cent during the 2010s driven by the growing share of renewables in total capacity additions. Against this backdrop countries rich in critical mineral resources have an opportunity to unlock significant development benefits. These minerals can attract foreign and domestic investment create jobs and boost fiscal revenues exports and overall economic growth. However quantifying the economic scale of the mining industry remains challenging especially due to the volatility of mineral prices which directly impact valuations.

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is reshaping the global economy transforming consumption patterns while driving economic growth. The value of the sector rivals that of global trade in goods and services and keeps expanding. E-commerce platforms help millions of businesses many of which are small and medium-sized enterprises sell online overcoming barriers such as physical market access infrastructure gaps and social constraints. However the benefits of e-commerce remain uneven with most developing countries lagging in the adoption of online shopping. It is also critical to ensure that this global transformation does not compromise environmental sustainability. The environmental impact of e-commerce depends on the type; business-to-consumer e-commerce implies a growing number of smaller packages deliveries and returns while business-to-business e-commerce may be more efficient with bulk orders requiring less packaging and allowing for streamlined delivery. The different stages of the business-to-consumer e-commerce logistics chain for goods (warehousing packaging transport returns) are examined in this policy brief along with changing consumer behaviour. In addition the need to rethink these elements is highlighted to reduce the environmental footprint of e-commerce while creating a regulatory framework that balances environmental sustainability with economic growth.