Prominent conceptualizations of policy coherence for sustainable development focus primarily on the roles of intra‐governmental policy processes and institutional interactions in shaping coherence between various agendas and policies. These technocratic understandings of coherence overlook the more political drivers of coherence, such as the vested interests or ideologies that may encourage or hinder efforts to achieve coherence. This paper addresses this gap by drawing on the comparative politics literature to facilitate a political understanding of policy coherence. It introduces an analytical framework hypothesizing how ideas, institutions, and interests (the three I's) may influence policy coherence at different policy stages. As such, it includes measures of how policy coherence is applied by different actors and institutions, and whose ideas and interests may be served by pursuing or not pursuing coherence. This article provides an example of how the framework can be applied to study policy coherence between two prominent international agendas: Agenda 2030 (incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals) and the Paris Agreement. Overall, the paper argues that the three I's influence policy options and shape the ambition and importance given to different agendas, goals and actors in pursuing or resisting policy coherence. This framework is suited for assessing the political divers of policy coherence through being applied to empirical data at global or national levels.

COVID-19 has triggered major upheavals to life as we know it in every corner of the planet. The governance response has been deep and far-reaching, albeit variable and contradictory. Disruptions like the pandemic inspire new perspectives on climate resilient development, especially with respect to the role of governance in navigating transformations. We reflect on what reactions and responses to COVID-19 around the world suggest about society’s ability to transform – and what types of global development we need to transform away from – in order to support more climate resilient and equitable futures. We identify three key pivot points to stimulate further thinking on governance for climate resilient development: the tension between engendering transformation and returning back to normal; the role of disruption and uncertainty for triggering transformation; and the role of systemic inequality in how people are affected by crises. In particular, we spotlight the turbulent nature of transformation, and challenge the dominant belief that predicted, controlled and desired outcomes can be engineered through rational policy decisions. Climate resilient development navigates the turbulence of transformation through solidarity and socially equitable governance by opening up space for inclusive and even contestatory politics.

Formal deliberations for the new collective quantified goal on climate finance began at COP26 in Glasgow. This Perspectives article aims to inform this process by discussing the potential size and nature of is post-2025 target. We argue that the climate finance system around the current target to mobilise US$100 billion per year to support developing countries has been fraught with difficulties, and that it would be ineffective to simply increase the climate finance target without addressing these difficulties. Therefore, we identify and discuss five priority elements for negotiations: the relation to Article 2.1(c) of the Paris Agreement; the adaptation-mitigation balance; financial instruments; mobilising private finance; and ‘new and additional’ finance. To increase transparency, accountability, and trust in climate finance under the UNFCCC and to simultaneously allow for the mobilisation of finance at scale, we suggest setting a sub-target for grants. In combination with additional (sub)target(s), this could define an overall new collective quantified goal that is better suited to serve the challenging dual role of mobilising finance at scale and transferring resources to developing countries. Key policy insights

During the formulation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, many promoted policy coherence as a key tool to ensure achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a way that “leaves no one behind.” Their argument assumed that coherent policymaking contributes to more effective policies and supports over‐arching efforts to reduce inequality. As the 2030 Agenda reaches the halfway point, however, countries are falling short on many SDGs, particularly SDG 10 (reduce inequality). This study revisits the basic assumptions about policy coherence underpinning the SDGs. We systematically screened the peer‐reviewed literature to identify 40 studies that provide evidence about whether coherent policymaking contributes to more effective outcomes and helps to reduce inequality. We find that coherent policymaking did not help reduce inequality in a majority of cases and made it worse in several. Our findings challenge the narrative that coherence is a necessary pre‐condition for progress on the SDGs for all people.

We – the Editors of Climate and Development – react in both delight and dismay to the ‘Hot List’ of 1000 influential scholars in climate change published by Reuters1 on 20 April 2021. Delight becau...

Global efforts to decarbonize heavy industry remain insufficiently aligned. While relatively new forms of international collaboration between and among states and companies are emerging, there is still considerable room to embark on more structured knowledge-sharing activities and coherent action among nations. In order to assess the concrete needs of an industry transition at scale, this paper analyzes 29 industry transition roadmaps across 13 countries, spanning the value chain of extractive, processing, and end-use heavy industry sectors. We compare and contrast these roadmaps according to the degree of ambition in decarbonization targets, the financial costs of implementing the roadmaps, and the key mitigation measures to achieve decarbonization targets. Importantly, this paper synthesizes and categorizes key policy, finance, and technology requirements called for to enable roadmap implementation. We demonstrate that the implementation of roadmaps across different industries and countries encounters common and comparable barriers and challenges, highlighting the need for international cooperation to facilitate global industry transitions.