Examples of shifting development pathways: lessons on how to enable broader, deeper, and faster climate action

The paper motivates the urgency to shift development pathways because accelerating low-carbon transitions must occur at an unprecedented pace, scale, and breadth. Despite decades of IPCC assessments on mitigation, global GHG emissions continue to rise, reaching nearly 60 GtCO2e in 2020. The authors argue that a complementary framing is needed: shifting development pathways towards sustainability (SDPS), as emphasized in IPCC AR6 WG III. Embedding mitigation within a broader development context can increase the pace, depth, and breadth of emissions reductions needed to limit warming to 2°C or 1.5°C. The SDPS concept highlights strengthening enabling conditions to make non-incremental, discontinuous changes possible. This paper seeks to make SDPS more concrete by analyzing examples and identifying enabling conditions that make such shifts possible. The study poses research questions on which enabling conditions have enabled SDPS, what lessons are transferable across contexts, and which enablers are context-specific versus broadly applicable. The overall design includes developing working definitions and a framework for selecting examples, presenting seven cases (across sectors and economy-wide, and across historical and future timeframes), and assessing them against a set of enablers to draw lessons on broadening mitigation options.

The authors position SDPS as a new yet conceptually grounded approach building on literature about mainstreaming climate into development (e.g., Halsnaes and Shukla; Bickersteth et al.), sustainable development within climate change assessments (IPCC reports), and links to poverty and inequality (Roy et al.). Earlier IPCC assessments considered sustainable development but did not explicitly foreground development pathways. IPCC AR6 WG III introduces SDPS as a means to broaden the range of levers and enablers to accelerate mitigation while advancing other development goals. The paper also references literature on drivers and levers of change, though it adopts the term enabling conditions for policy relevance. This background establishes that integrated public policies influencing choices by many actors can shift development pathways and broaden mitigation options, situating the study within existing scholarship while extending it through empirical cases of SDPS.

The study employs a qualitative, inductive case study approach to identify enabling conditions and policy packages that can shift development pathways towards sustainability. Information is drawn from existing empirical and modeled studies; no new coding of literature is undertaken. Cases are presented based on literature review and assessed against predefined enabling conditions. The framework for case selection follows two dimensions (after Grübler): temporal (historical vs. future/ex ante modeled) and spatial/systemic (economy-wide vs. sector-specific). Selection criteria include at least one case in each temporal-spatial quadrant and broad geographical coverage across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America. The approach acknowledges the complexity of economy-wide shifts, the challenges of generalization from case studies, and that the study is exploratory and not statistically representative. Method components include: working definitions of SDPS; an enablers framework; short case descriptions (e.g., education and urban sprawl in the USA; affordable inner-city housing in Paris; universal energy access and controlling deforestation in Brazil; transport transformation in Costa Rica; mitigation with equality in Sweden; coal transition led by an Indian state-owned utility; long-term economic structural change in South Africa); and cross-case assessment of enabling conditions such as finance, long-term vision, institutional reform, integrated policy packages, and focus on multiple SDGs.

- Accelerated mitigation requires policies beyond conventional emission-focused instruments; shifting development pathways toward sustainability is necessary to broaden, deepen, and speed climate action. - Countries can learn from successful SDPS examples elsewhere, although context strongly influences outcomes and transferability. - Certain enabling conditions are broadly applicable across contexts, notably adequate and well-aligned finance, clear long-term vision, and a sustained focus on wider sustainable development objectives alongside mitigation. - Multiple enablers working together, integrated policy packages, and involvement of a broad range of actors (across economy and society) are crucial to achieve multiple objectives. - Some enablers can deliver near-term results, while others require longer time horizons to manifest impacts, implying the need for sequenced and sustained interventions. - Overall, effective climate mitigation calls for an "all of economy, all of society" approach that addresses ultimate drivers of emissions (e.g., education, housing, institutional and fiscal structures), not just proximate drivers.

The findings respond to the research questions by demonstrating, through diverse cases, how enabling conditions outside traditional climate policy domains can shift development pathways and thereby accelerate mitigation while advancing other SDGs. Cross-case analysis suggests that finance, long-term vision, and sustainable development objectives function as widely relevant enablers, while the effectiveness and design of policy packages remain context-dependent. The role of integrated, multi-actor interventions indicates that addressing ultimate drivers of emissions (such as education systems affecting urban form, or housing affordability influencing commuting) broadens the mitigation toolbox and enhances the depth and breadth of emissions reductions. The temporal dimension of enablers underscores the need for both quick-win measures and sustained, structural reforms, aligning with the goal of achieving rapid, deep, and sustained emissions reductions compatible with 1.5–2°C pathways.

The paper contributes a practical framing of shifting development pathways towards sustainability by compiling and assessing diverse examples to identify enabling conditions for broader, deeper, and faster climate action. It highlights that mitigation success requires integrated policy packages and engagement across the entire economy and society, leveraging enablers such as finance, long-term vision, and alignment with sustainable development objectives. Lessons from different contexts can inform policy design elsewhere while recognizing context specificity. The overarching implication is that embedding mitigation within broader development strategies expands the range of options to meet climate and development goals.

- The study is exploratory and qualitative, based on selected case studies rather than a large-n, statistically representative sample. - No systematic coding of literature was conducted; the cases are drawn from existing studies and are not an exhaustive systematic review. - Generalization from case studies is inherently limited; transferability of lessons depends on context. - Economy-wide shifts are complex, and interactions across sectors/systems add uncertainty to inferences. - The paper does not claim to present a theory or explanatory model; it synthesizes lessons across cases using an enablers framework.