Sanitation key to cleaning up climate goals

Sanitation systems are a significant driver of global heat-trapping methane emissions, contributing about 12% of the world’s methane emissions from wastewater management and non-sewered sanitation systems. And, because of the limited data available on sanitation system emissions, that’s likely an undercount.

However, Nationally Determined Contributions tend to overlook this issue, with only 2% of activities detailed in NDCs addressing climate action in sanitation systems, and less than half of countries with NDCs mentioning sanitation at all.

Since its launch in 2021, the Global Methane Pledge has amassed the support of 158 countries that pledge to cut global methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030. However, methane emissions from sanitation systems are overlooked by the climate community, and they are only beginning to catch the attention of the sanitation sector.

But, if countries address these issues in tandem, they can unlock a new world of opportunities to enhance the efficiency and resilience of sanitation systems, lower greenhouse gas emissions, increase community and ecosystem resilience, improve food security, and access vital climate finance to support these initiatives.

Existing sanitation plans are largely reactive, focusing mostly on adaptation to climate change instead of mitigating climate-harming effects such as methane emissions. While important, this overlooks an opportunity for sanitation improvements to also contribute to global emission reduction goals. This can be done by capturing methane for use as an energy source and using treated sludge as fertilizer, among other known solutions.

Furthermore, many sanitation-related mentions in NDCs are vague and lack that critical link to climate. They might allude to “improved sanitation” or “improved wastewater treatment” without describing the intended improvements and the steps needed to achieve them.

Some countries provide examples to follow. Jordan’s latest National Water Strategy emphasizes climate resilience, and outlines actions to preserve water supply and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Uganda details concrete goals such as expanding sanitation services, wastewater treatment, and safe wastewater reuse, and integrates climate adaptation and mitigation targets throughout. These countries are joined by Bolivia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, and more in developing policies and actions that approach climate and sanitation as interconnected issues.

COP28 called on countries to raise the ambition of their NDCs, and sanitation presents a largely untapped opportunity for many countries to achieve greater emission reductions while also increasing the resilience of sanitation systems. With countries required to present revised NDCs by 2025, now is the time for sanitation stakeholders to collaborate closely with climate policymakers to realize the full sustainable development and climate benefits of robust sanitation. Such collaboration can help countries not only meet their current climate commitments, but also transcend them, achieving significant progress on global efforts to combat climate change.

Transforming our food system under One Health

Imagine if we could halt all fossil fuel emissions immediately. We could say “mission accomplished” on the Paris Agreement, right?

But we would be overlooking a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions that would still take us over the 1.5°C warming threshold and may well threaten 2°C: our food system.

The global food system emits nearly one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, with animal agriculture alone responsible for somewhere between 12 and 20%.

Global governments and institutions increasingly recognize this. More than 150 countries pledged to include food-related measures into their NDCs at COP28, and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is about to release new publications as part of its three-part global roadmap for solving hunger without breaching 1.5°C.

But there is a risk that proposed solutions to reduce emissions from the food system overlook important interventions and miss critical unintended consequences that can worsen other threats to humans, animals and ecosystems.

For example, intensifying animal farming to reduce deforestation and land use – and placing more emphasis on chicken and aquatic species in the process – could lead to overcrowding, which harms not only the animals, but may maintain or boost risks of zoonotic disease emergence and antimicrobial resistance. These risks can jeopardize food security, disrupting supply chains and threatening livelihoods. The recent resurgence of bird flu and the Covid-19 pandemic serve as stark reminders of how animal and human health intersect. Furthermore, increasing the efficiency through which  animal-sourced foods are produced can lower prices and increase demand, undermining the emissions savings that intensified farming was meant to achieve.

That is why it will be important for countries that have promised to transform their food systems to take a One Health approach: one that looks beyond greenhouse gas emissions and also encompasses public health, biodiversity, and animal health welfare.

They could do so, for instance, by explicitly acknowledging the importance of a One Health approach in their NDCs, and committing to undertake One Health impact assessments as they pursue climate action in the food system.

They could also prioritize interventions that are known to benefit the environment and public health simultaneously. For instance, richer countries can commit to dietary shifts away from high levels of animal protein consumption, and towards more whole-plant-based foods, which have well-documented benefits for the environment and public health.

These governments can also increase their investments in alternative proteins: novel plant-based meats, cultivated meat and fermentation-derived foods that are in development today. Such products not only show significant environmental promise, but can also support One Health goals by significantly reducing risks of zoonotic disease and antimicrobial resistance. 

The climate crisis cannot be solved without also solving our food system. In doing so, a holistic approach is paramount. The next round of NDCs is an opportunity to make the link between climate action and One Health explicit.

Tackling inequality through consumption

Climate action in the last 30 years has been insufficient to meet the urgency of our environmental crisis. It has been framed as a technical problem that can be solved by substituting dirty fossil energy with clean technologies such as solar panels and electric vehicles or switching from animal- to plant-based foods.

While many countries focus on the emissions produced within their borders, they ignore the emissions that are imported from their consumption of foreign-made goods, giving a false picture of their true climate impact. While technical solutions are needed, they are not enough.

The hyper-focus on substituting one technology or product for another rather than reducing material and energy consumption and waste does not only limit the efficacy of our climate goals. It will also cause us to the exceed several other planetary boundaries, including the integrity of the biosphere and the alteration of freshwater cycles, from growing pollution and resource use.

How people consume is intricately linked to choices in infrastructure investment, as well as the cost of resources. For example, when there is greater investment in roads over public transit, people are more likely to use private vehicles than buses and trains.

Moreover, since many goods and services are produced cheaply in lower-income countries or by lower-income individuals, it perpetuates unsustainable consumption patterns among the rich when the true social and environmental costs of resource production are not reflected in the prices consumers pay. These investment decisions and the disparities in the production, trade, and consumption of goods and resources contribute to inequality both between and within countries.

High-income countries and individuals need to reduce consumption, but the challenge is that consumption is much more of an economic and social problem, rather than just a technical one. Consumption is shaped not only by individual actions, but also larger societal design forged by policies and business models.

A key challenge is that our economic structures emphasize continuous economic growth fuelled by a persistent demand for goods and their production. GDP serves as a proxy for measuring average societal welfare and its growth can give the impression that society is generally improving, when in fact average welfare may be skewed by wealth inequality and other environmental and social externalities. As such, there is growing interest in centering “well-being” in economic policy and the overall improvement in quality of life for all people, rather than increasing consumption and the accumulation of wealth and material goods.

A first step in addressing consumption is to acknowledge it as an issue. This includes tracking consumption and consumption-based emissions, ideally disaggregated by household income level and on a per-capita basis, and then making appropriate goals to reduce these emissions. These goals may be included in NDCs. As many lower-income countries and households suffer from under-consumption, this assessment can determine how much consumption is necessary to provide people with the needed resources to obtain and maintain decent living standards.

Integration of global and domestic priorities at last?

As progress on the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda falters, government officials must now translate synergies between the sustainable development goals, climate, and biodiversity to their national context. 

To support this work, all countries need to improve the domestic standing of their upcoming NDCs, integrate climate action and align the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with national priorities.  

Simply put, NDCs should spearhead a nationally-driven shared vision for the future that builds on climate and sustainable development synergies as being net positive for societies. By failing to do this, and consequently failing to accelerate implementation, countries risk undermining hard-won global achievements that, in some cases, took decades to negotiate. 

Connections between climate action and the SDGs have since long been established, visualized and assessed, but are nevertheless, in most cases, neither explicit nor intentionally consistent with domestic policy priorities. 

With the arrival of the third generation of NDCs, expected in early 2025, countries face a difficult task to ensure that ambitions are raised, but also to heed advice and signal intention to implement the 2030 adaptation and mitigation goals agreed at the 2023 Global Stocktake and also to fulfil the sustainable development duties outlined in the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report.  

Enhancing global ambition and integration in the domestic policy landscape are intertwined. If implemented well, successful implementation of climate action can help spark more ambition. 

Learning from experience 

Comparing the countries that have published the first and the second generation NDCs, some lessons can be learned.  

The increased ambition between the first and second rounds has produced almost 68% more activities, outlining countries’ adaptation and mitigation actions, according to our NDC-SDG Connections tool. This tool also shows that countries’ climate action, when aggregated, connect across all Sustainable Development Goals, while putting significant emphasis on energy, agriculture, land use and sustainable cities.   

Despite the overall increase, however, the type of goals and objectives being set in the NDCs are predominantly generic, with no quantified goals or targets. This signals that, despite increasing ambition, NDCs are not being translated to domestic action. A positive sign, however, is that the share of quantified activities has increased, rising from 13% to 23% overall.  

When broken down at the SDG level, a similar story appears, with the majority of quantified targets linked to goals on expanding affordable and clean energy and promoting life on land. 

Meanwhile, targets falling within the social dimension of sustainable development remain underrepresented, both in total number of activities and in terms of quantified targets. Goals on reducing inequality and poverty are among those with the lowest growth in specific targets in both absolute and relative terms. 

This is also true for certain targets in non-social goals. Taking the affordable and clean energy goal as an example, 90% of quantified targets are related to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Meanwhile, only 10% of the quantified targets aim at increasing access to energy. 

How to improve the next round of NDCs, then? 

First, strengthen and quantify most, if not all, adaptation and mitigation objectives. Here, less is more. Fewer objectives that are clearly set, measurable and verifiable, e.g. by including milestones would ensure better opportunity to actually implement them.  

Second, we need more even distribution of synergistic climate action across the environmental, social and economic dimensions. While not all targets are equally important, all SDGs should be. For example, strengthening interactions between energy access and affordability in NDCs, particularly in vulnerable countries, can accelerate on-the-ground change. 

Finally, NDC analysis from the United Nations Development Programme has shown that country ownership and integration are drivers of increased domestic ambition on climate action. To connect global and domestic priorities, countries need to increase their coordination efforts, horizontally between ministries and agencies and vertically, between local and national governments and global processes. This must be followed by ensuring policy coherence across multiple policies and issue areas by undertaking meaningful assessments of cross-sectoral policy interaction to develop strategies for building synergies and minimizing adverse consequences.  

These are crucial prerequisites for effective integration of climate change and sustainable development across domestic institutional silos.