Published by
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) / Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU) Partnership
Year
2015

Transformational Change for Low Carbon and Sustainable Development

The paper presents five case studies that explore a diversity of success factors and indicators of transformational change across countries and sectors. The cases were selected in order to learn from the most successful examples of transformations that have happened or that are planned to achieve low-carbon development (LCD). Transformations may have emerged for other reasons than responding to climate change concerns, and the choice of cases is not limited to NAMA interventions, but seeks to learn from broader transformations of sectors and sub-sectors towards low- or zero-carbon development at the country level. A balance is kept between the choice of developed and developing country cases. Developed countries have a longer history of twenty to thirty years since starting their transitions to LCD, whereas most developing countries have started recently within the last five to ten years. Cases are chosen to maximize the diversity of sectors and to learn from the most ambitious GHG reduction goals, with a clear link to the hypothesized success factors according to the theoretical approaches presented in the concept paper.