Low carbon transition of global power sector may enhance sustainable development goals

Abstract Low-carbon power transition, key to combatting climate change, brings far-reaching effects on achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in terms of resources use, environmental emissions, employment, and many more. Here we assess the potential impacts of power transition on multiple SDGs progress across 49 economies under six socio-economic-climate scenarios. We find that the low carbon power transition under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 scenarios could lead to approximately 10% improvement in global SDG index score from 65.30 in 2015 to 71.62–71.64 in 2050. However, the improvement would be significantly decreased to 1.91%-4.98% and 3.42%-5.24% under RCP6.0 and RCP4.5 scenarios, respectively. Power transition could improve the overall SDG index in most developed economies under all scenarios while undermine their resources-related SDG scores. The power transition induced changes in international trade would improve developed economies’ SDG progress, but jeopardize that of developing economies which usually serve as resource hubs to meet the demand for low carbon power transition in developed economies.