Transitioning to Low-Carbon Economies under the 2030 Agenda: Minimizing Trade-Offs and Enhancing Co-Benefits of Climate-Change Action for the SDGs

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The idea of classifying the climate change measures depending on criteria presented in the study is wisely introduced. The issue here is that the methodology of classification is poorly described, the tools used in the study is simple literature review (not really analyses) what makes the content less valuable. In general the the manuscript presents good quality however the scientific soundness needs strong improvement, please consider exposing the background of the research in more sophisticated way. There are only minor editing errors that need correction: instead of upper indexes use required ref format (l.38), the ref formatting (l.64-65), different fonts (l.115-121) 

Author Response

The co-authors would like to thank Reviewer 1 for the positive and helpful review. We sought to provide further clarity on the methodology  and to improve the scientific soundness by better explaining the literature review process (e.g. what was considered relevant literature, how the keywords for literature identification were developed, how the co-authors agreed on the impacts scoring). Additions in that regard can be found in the Materials and Methods section. We further made the requested corrections at lines 38, 64-65 (and other similar inconsistencies in the text at 55 637 and 644) and 115-121. Thank you.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors make a complete bibliographic compilation on the relationship between climate change and SDG. In addition, they show an interesting figure in which the relationship between them is represented. At the end of their study, they focus on G20 countries. However, in some countries some measures are easier to apply than in others. For this reason, this reviewer thinks that showing which measures not yet implemented should be prioritized in each country, due to the ease that it would imply, could improve his research.

Author Response

The co-authors are grateful to Reviewer 2 for the helpful comments. In response to this feedback, we clarified our research questions in the introduction (lines 90-96). moreover, we added a few lines (678-683) on the relevance of specific climate change mitigation measures in different G20 member states. Here, we point out different priorities and needs based on countries contexts, e.g. the role of agriculture and forestry and the importance of energy independence through increased shares of renewable energy. The ease of implementation of specific policies depends on a number of factors that were not directly assessed in this study - e.g. public acceptance, vested interests, existing institution, costs of technologies and of implementation, specific country needs and contexts. To provide suggestions for policy prioritisation in each G20 country would require in-depth analysis of every G20 member state, which would go beyond the scope of our research. With this analysis we aimed to determine if the number of co-benefits and trade-offs lead to more or less frequent adoption of specific policy measures, even as countries have different priorities and needs. We hope that this new textual addition is satisfying and that the rationale for not suggesting policy priorities based on ease of implementation is acceptable. Thank you very much for your review.