Research approach

CD-LINKS will combine multiple streams of research – empirical analysis, model enhancement and scenario development – to achieve its multiple objectives:

    • At the heart of the project, national and global transformation pathways will be developed that address climate change within the broader sustainable development agendas of G20 countries. Collaboration between national and global modelling teams will yield more coherent pictures of the future than is typical of pathways studies.
    • The project will explore low-carbon development pathways and adaptation strategies that ensure the achievement of a wide range of sustainable development objectives, including in particular, alleviating energy poverty and income inequality, reducing air pollution and associated health impacts, ensuring water availability, food and energy security, and managing the risks of climate-related extreme events.
    • In support of evidence-based decision making, the analysis of low-carbon development pathways will be complemented by empirical analyses of past and existing policies that have had a climate or broader development focus. A review of national action plans, planned policies and international country pledges will round out the picture by assessing expected trends over the short-to-medium term.
    • CD-LINKS will go further than previously developed transformation pathways, which have been largely silent about policy implementation, by translating insights from the scenario work into concrete and tangible recommendations for policy implementation at the national and international level.