Annex 8Policy considerations for the best-practice recommendation on climate co-benefits

When assessing the harms and benefits, the guideline(s) development group (GDG) agreed that taking a synergistic approach to policy based on this evidence should yield multiple benefits. These include increased commitment and financial resources, increased attention to securing health benefits in energy policy, and using energy policy to control short-lived climate pollutants. This is also an opportunity to link carbon-finance to health as well as environmental benefits. Potential harms may arise in the climate arena if interventions are inappropriate and poorly planned. Including a health impact assessment when climate policy is considered should help to avoid these adverse consequences. It is also important to consider the whole fuel/energy cycle, including emissions from electrical power generation, to ensure a comprehensive assessment of potential benefits and harms.

When considering values and preferences, the GDG noted that there is wide consensus on the value of pursuing synergistic policies that can deliver climate, health and other (e.g. local environmental and economic development) benefits. This approach is central to the strategies of the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative (SE4All), the UN Foundation Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC), and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC). In addition to the UNEP (2011) assessment (1), and the linked paper by Shindell et al. (2012) (2) other studies have reported potentially large health co-benefits from policies targeting emissions of climate pollutants from household fuel combustion, see for example Anenberg et al. (2012) (3) and Wilkinson et al. (2009) (4).

When considering feasibility, the GDG agreed that synergistic policy is potentially cost-saving, and the global initiatives referred to above show that there is broad-based commitment to it. The household energy-climate impact link is already providing carbon finance for household energy programme implementation, and could be further enhanced by inclusion of indicators of health risk reduction.