Research // Climate Policy and the Energy-Water-Food Nexus: A Model Linkage Approach

By Dirk Willenbockel, Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. There is a growing recognition that the ambitious UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end hunger, achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture (SDG 2), to ensure universal access to water and sanitation (SDG 6), to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy (SDG 7) and to combat climate change and its impacts (SDG 13) are linked in complex ways. The emerging literature on the energy-water-food nexus1 highlights the need to take account of the trade-offs and synergies among the goals arising from these linkages, but also underscores the need for further research to understand the quantitative relevance of the various channels through which measures towards the attainment of the goals affect each other.