Improving Policy Coherence for Climate and Sustainable Development:

As part of a broader, inclusive agenda on sustainable development, climate change is being increasingly integrated into the EU's development strategy in order to simultaneously manage co-benefits and trade-offs between climate and development priorities. But the Sustainable Development Goals agenda also demands commitment from the EU to ensure that its internal policies and decisions will have a positive impact on international sustainable development. 

The simultaneous implementation of the Sustainable Development Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement will provide a unique opportunity to advance policy coherence at all levels, both between EU’s external policies and across the external and domestic policy nexus. By considering broader environmental impacts, human rights and a gender-responsive approach in planning, designing and implementing climate related policies and actions, policymakers can avoid harmful unintended consequences while maximizing the wellbeing benefits of their programmes and projects.

EU’s policy quest for increasing the use of renewable energy as a means to mitigate climate change has changed EU countries patterns of imports from third countries linked to demand for biomass feedstocks to support the power, heat and transport sectors. While the EU has attempted to put in place rules to mitigate these bioenergy demand related spillovers, considerable questions over demand for commodities from Europe influencing wider land use change and deforestation remain. Consequently, to be more 'SDG compatible', EU’s domestic climate and energy policies need to demonstrate their ability to mitigate negative spillover effects at global level.

The objective of the event is to present the findings of the two hbs studies – The Road from Paris to Sustainable Development: Integrating Human Rights and Gender Equality into EU External Climate Policies and 'Sustainable Development Goals and the EU: the external and internal policy nexus', which seek to provide insights in the interplay of EU internal and external policies for the promotion of the wider sustainability agenda in the context of climate change and examines the specific roles played by the EU and its institutions. In the context of the Special IPCC report and the COP24 negotiations, the event also aims to address key issues related to available options and instruments to align 1.5 degree pathways with sustainable development, human rights and gender equality. 

Date 

13 December 2018

Time

5:30 pm - 7:30 pm: Conference

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm: Dinner reception

Location

Galeria Rondo Sztuki (next to COP venue)
Rondo im. Gen. Jerzego Ziętka 1
40-001 Katowice
Poland