1.1 Background
Climate change has emerged as a pressing global issue that poses significant challenges to human societies and the environment [1–3]. Climate change is primarily due to human activities, particularly the extensive combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. These human activities generate a substantial amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, leading to global warming.
In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The goal was "to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system," and it required countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with their responsibilities, abilities, and specific circumstances. The first substantive agreement of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol [7], was signed in 1997, requiring industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to below 5% of 1990 levels between 2008–2012. In 2009, the UN hosted a climate change conference in Copenhagen in an attempt to reach a new global agreement; however, the meeting ended without a clear agreement and was considered a failure [8]. The Paris Agreement [9] was signed at the UN Climate Change Conference in 2015, with the goal of keeping global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To achieve this, countries agreed to submit nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to reduce emissions and to review these goals every five years. These agreements and meetings highlight the challenges of combating climate change, including in science, policy, economics, and justice. A key issue is how to ensure economic development and poverty reduction while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These challenges and issues are intimately related to sustainable human development.
The Brundtland Report, "Our Common Future [10]," was released by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The report first introduced the concept of "sustainable development," defined as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The Rio Declaration [11] and Agenda 21 [12] were both signed at the Earth Summit in 1992. The Rio Declaration included 27 principles on sustainable development, while Agenda 21 was a global action plan aimed at achieving a balance between the environment and development. In 2000, the United Nations established eight development goals to be achieved by 2015, known as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which included reducing extreme poverty and hunger, improving levels of education, health, and gender equality, and ensuring environmental sustainability. The United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, which outlines 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a blueprint for achieving a more sustainable future for all [13].
Among them, SDG13 (Climate Action) is directly related to climate change, with the aim to "take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts". SDG13 encourages all countries to respond to climate change, strengthen their resilience and adaptability to its impacts, and integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and plans. The goal also emphasizes enhancing education, raising people's awareness of the threats posed by climate change, and increasing institutional capacities to handle climate change. It also refers to global participation and cooperation in addressing these issues. This includes development assistance to help developing countries enhance their capacities to deal with climate change.
The goal of sustainable development is to achieve balance in social, economic, and environmental dimensions, a principle also known as the "triple bottom line [14]." Under this framework, it is not only necessary to ensure economic growth and social justice but also to ensure the health and sustainability of the Earth's ecosystems and resources. Therefore, addressing climate change is an integral part of achieving sustainable development. On the other hand, accomplishing one or more sustainable development goals is also a way to address climate change issues.
1.2 Research Frontier
Addressing the issue of climate change faces many challenges and obstacles, including political challenges, economic factors, technological challenges, social and cultural barriers, and issues of inequality. Firstly, policy makers need to strike a balance between short-term economic benefits and long-term environmental sustainability. Political disagreements and national interests can also hinder the achievement and implementation of global climate agreements [15, 16]. Secondly, transitioning to a low-carbon economy requires a significant amount of funding and investment. Many economically backward countries may lack resources to implement necessary changes [17]. Thirdly, although renewable energy technologies have made significant progress, these technologies still can't completely replace fossil fuels in many cases[18]. Fourthly, human lifestyles and consumption patterns need to undergo major changes, which may face resistance in many societies and cultures [19]. Lastly, the impacts of climate change are not equal globally. Some of the poorest and most vulnerable countries and communities are often the most affected, yet they lack the resources and capacity to cope with these changes [20].
There are numerous studies related to climate change, and these studies encompass a wide range of issues. Issues related to climate change and sustainable development goals [21], for example, the water-energy-food (nexus), has been extensively studied in relation to climate change in the past [22]. In this issue, systematic analyses, comparisons, interpretations, and governance recommendations have been proposed, along with in-depth exploration of sustainable development goals and appropriate management models [23–25].
The connection between climate change and the SDGs is evident, as the impacts of climate change have the potential to undermine the progress made towards achieving these goals[15–17]. For instance, climate change has direct implications for SDGs [29–35] related to poverty reduction(SDG1: NO Poverty), food security(SDG2: No Hunger)[36–42],energy(SDG7: Affordable and clean energy) [43–46], clean water and sanitation(SDG6: Clean water and sanitation), and sustainable cities[47–49] and communities(SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities). People must take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, including enhancing the resilience and adaptive capacity of nations to climate-related disasters, and integrating climate change measures into national policies and planning(SDG13: Climate action). Therefore, understanding the trends and patterns of research on the interlinkages between climate change and the SDGs is crucial for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to identify gaps and prioritize efforts in addressing these challenges [50–52].
However, many topics still require systematic research to formulate sustainable management strategies. For instance, key decisions from the COP26 held in 2021 included the formulation of long-term low-carbon development strategies, strengthening actions to reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases (such as methane), and enhancing the intensity of nationally determined contributions (NDC) targets for 2030 [53–56]. Comprehensive assessments are needed on how countries can gradually reduce coal burning and phase out fossil fuel subsidies, as well as establish rules for the international carbon market [57].
In order to follow these resolutions, the majority of countries around the world are currently formulating net-zero emission management strategies. Net-zero emissions mean that the greenhouse gas emissions produced by an organization, city, region, or country are balanced by the amount they offset, thereby contributing zero to global warming [58].
When systematically formulating net-zero management strategies, there are several important topics that need to be considered, such as energy transition (requiring investment and policy promotion to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy) [59, 60], green infrastructure (constructing low-carbon, green infrastructure, such as green buildings and public transportation systems) [61], green finance (encouraging and guiding financial institutions to invest in low-carbon technologies and industries, and incorporating climate risks into their risk management frameworks) [62], carbon pricing (establishing and implementing carbon pricing systems, such as carbon taxes or carbon trading markets, to reflect their true environmental costs), and international cooperation (climate change is a global issue that requires cooperation among countries to share resources and technology).
It involves multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These strategies need to take into account trade-offs or synergistic effects, including the balance between economy and environment (energy transition may lead to job loss in certain industries, but it may also create new job opportunities. Appropriate policies are needed to mitigate the impact of this transition) [63–65], fairness (wealthier countries have more resources to reduce emissions, while poorer countries may rely more on fossil fuels. To resolve this inequality, international aid or other mechanisms may be needed) [66, 67], cross-sector collaboration (many solutions will require cooperative work between different sectors or industries, such as energy, transportation, construction, finance, etc.) [68, 69], technological innovation and application (from improving energy efficiency to developing clean energy, and designing and implementing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, technological innovation plays a key role in achieving net-zero. Of course, this also requires resource input and a suitable policy environment to incentivize and support) [70–72], behavioral and cultural change (to successfully achieve net-zero, it may be necessary to change public behavior and values, from dietary habits to travel methods, and attitudes towards energy use. This may involve education, policy guidance, and public participation) [73, 74], and ecological restoration and protection (forests, oceans, and other natural ecosystems are important carbon sinks of the planet. Protecting and restoring these ecosystems can provide important offset strategies, while also helping to protect biodiversity and enhance ecological resilience) [75].
Strategies to address climate change include mitigation and adaptation. The aforementioned net zero is a mitigation strategy, while the formulation of adaptation strategies to manage and respond to climate change also requires systematic consideration. This includes disaster prevention and post-disaster recovery [66, 67], water resource management [78], adjustments to farming and livestock practices [79], urban planning and design[70, 71], protection and restoration of ecosystems [72–74], and policy and legislation [85] among other topics. Additionally, research suggests that enhancing the ability to manage extreme weather events can reduce economic, social, and human losses, and ultimately decrease borrowing from lending institutions. The vulnerability to extreme weather events, disaster management, and adaptation must become part of the long-term sustainable development planning for developing countries [26].
In this process, there indeed exist many challenges, echoing the previously mentioned obstacles faced in tackling the issue of climate change. These include technical, policy-related, economic, social, and cultural aspects. Therefore, people must take a systemic and holistic approach, implementing solutions to climate change from the framework of sustainable development..
Currently, there are over ten thousand academic papers discussing the relevance of climate change or one or more Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There are numerous ways to summarize, integrate, or categorize these research perspectives. Common methods include convening expert meetings [86] or using literature mining software [77–79] such as VOSviewer, Microsoft Excel, and Biblioshiny, to conduct structured reviews of the interrelationships between Climate Change (CC) and SDGs.
The discussions at the expert meeting revealed the synergies and trade-offs between climate change and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the impact of climate change (CC) on the achievement of the SDGs [86]. Using literature software, the bibliometrix package, and R library, it was found that precipitation, drought, and evapotranspiration are the main climate terms most focused on under the topic of climate change [90]. Moreover, an analysis using Microsoft Excel on published journal articles found that gender equality, climate action, and global health are the key words most focused on in studies related to the Sustainable Development Goals. Some researchers also presented the evolution of themes over the years, and the co-occurrence maps of key words in the context of climate change and sustainable development practice, and found that there have been many research studies in these areas, but there is still a need for more in-depth study [91].
However, as highlighted in the background, after the 2015 Paris Agreement and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals were proposed, researchers worldwide are called upon to perform comprehensive and systematic analyses, categorizations, and discussions of the results presented by these literature analysis tools. These efforts aim to aid researchers and policymakers in addressing climate change and its related problems, as well as formulating suitable strategies for these issues, all from a perspective of sustainable development. These areas continue to require further in-depth research, and bibliometric analysis can serve as one effective method in this regard.