Achieving social equity in climate action: untapped opportunities and building blocks for leaving no one behind

Climate action offers massive opportunities to reduce social inequalities, but they remain largely untapped. This is a key finding from the review of the impacts of priority climate measures in six systems—industry, energy, transport, cities, agriculture, and forestry. This paper highlights pitfalls to avoid and building blocks for fairer climate action. Lower-income and disadvantaged people, who suffer the most from climate change and pollution, can benefit most from protection and clean solutions but face the greatest barriers to access the gains of climate policies and are disproportionately affected by their cost.