Identify types of development and climate impacts that are country priorities
Stage 3
- 2.1. Assess current country plans, policies, practices, and capacities
- 2.2. Compile lessons learned and good practices from ongoing and previous sustainable development efforts in the country
- 2.3. Assess public and private sector capacity to support initiatives
- 2.4. Assess and improve the national GHG inventory and other economic and resource data as needed for LEDS development
- Greenhouse Gas Inventory Development Toolkit
- 3a. Analytical Decision Making - Developing BAU Scenario
- 3b. Analytical Decision Making - Assessing Opportunities
- 3b.1. Assess technical potential for sector technologies
- Renewable Energy Technical Potential Toolkit
- Building Energy Assessment Toolkit
- Power System Screening and Design Toolkit
- Land Use Assessment Toolkit
- Bioenergy Assessment Toolkit
- Transportation Assessment Toolkit
- 3b.2. Assess economic and market potential of technologies and initiatives
- Clean Energy Market Analysis Toolkit
- 3b.3. Prioritize development options
- 3c. Analytical Decision Making - Developing and Assessing Low Emissions Development Scenarios
- 3c.1. Develop low emissions growth scenarios
- 3c.2. Assess institutional framework for LEDS
- Financing Initiatives Toolkit
- Policy and Program Design Toolkit
- 3c.3. Assess in-depth contributions of selected scenarios to goals across sectors
- Land-use Scenario Analysis Toolkit
- Energy System and Scenario Analysis Toolkit
- 3c.4. Perform multi-criteria impact analysis and assess stakeholder responses
- Clean Energy Impact Assessment Tool
- Sustainable Land-use Impact Assessment Toolkit
3b.3 Prioritize development options
3b.3.1 Identify types of development and climate impacts that are country priorities
It is important to identify types of development and climate impacts that are country priorities such as employment, GDP, health, local environment and climate resiliency. This will help to ensure that there is a strong linkage between the goals of the LEDS, current climate program goals and national development goals.
- This identification will occur on a country-by-country basis in relation to current national development plans and other climate planning activities.
In creating a LEDS, policy makers often have access to information on abatement potential and costs for clean energy technologies, but there is a scarcity of economy-wide approaches for evaluating and presenting information on other dimensions of importance to development, such as human welfare, poverty alleviation, and energy security. To address this shortcoming, a new tool has been proposed that both helps communicate development benefits associated with each clean energy-related intervention, and facilitate decision-making for which combination of interventions best contributes to development goals.
To generate the output of the tool (see example to the right) stakeholder responses to different technologies are recorded and classified as highly positive, positive, negative, or neutral. The cumulative summary of the responses is then generated in a table that gives a visual representation of development impacts across sectors. This visual can then be returned to stakeholders.
3b.3.2 Analyze qualitatively development and climate impacts of LEDS technologies and measures
Technologies and initiatives considered under LEDS can directly and indirectly contribute to development and long-term climate resiliency goals.
- Establish preliminary near-and long-term emissions and development goals and secure endorsement of goals by public and private sector leaders
Drawing from this identification of climate and development goals for the country and the techno-economic analyses, at this step technical teams and stakeholders can work together to qualitatively assess potential impacts of technology and land-use initiatives and how these might support climate and development goals.
- Potential impacts that could be qualitatively assessed include:
- Economic: employment, job creation, income, food production, rural electrification and stability in supply, terms of trade, energy intensity and cost impacts in industry, buildings, and transportation
- Social: urban and rural development, literacy, health impacts, education, innovation
- Environmental: climate resiliency; air, soil, and water quality, water use, biodiversity, GHG emissions
From this qualitative assessment, the teams can also begin to identify criteria or indicators to measure these impacts. One example of a guide for establishing such criteria is: Energy Indicators for Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies. Country studies using this framework can also be reviewed at: Country studies for Brazil, Cuba, Lithuania, Mexico, Russian Federation, Slovakia and Thailand
3b.3.3 Establish preliminary near- and long-term emissions and development goals
Based on the previous qualitative impact assessment of various clean energy technology and land use options, stakeholders can establish near- and long-term goals for each sector and the economy as a whole. The previous assessment will ideally provide metrics to later measure the actual outcomes of the LEDS in relation to goals set.
Goals established by countries could include the following aggregated benefits from mitigation actions:
- Specific economy-wide goals for economic (e.g., jobs creation), social (e.g., education and health), and local environmental (e.g., air and water quality improvement) development and for reduced growth in GHG emissions (e.g., GHG emission levels)
- Sector specific development (e.g., rural energy access) and low emission goals
Secure endorsement of goals by public and private sector leaders.
- Securing endorsements by public and private sector leaders is very important at the end of this stage to ensure that there is strong support for the goals and that they are widely understood in the public sphere.