Building Policy Coherence to Foster a ‘Just Transition’ Across Asia and the Pacific

Asia and the Pacific remains significantly off-track on progress toward each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The region has also witnessed a regression in climate action with a rapid increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Over the last six decades, temperatures in Asia and the Pacific have increased faster than the global average. Six of the top 10 countries most affected by disasters are in the region.  Unless Asia-Pacific countries make serious efforts, emissions will continue to rise given that it is a fast-growing region, hosting almost 60 percent of the world population. This calls for a rapid transition to low-carbon development pathways. 

Green transition creates new jobs, but it can also lead to job displacements in the carbon intensive sectors. ILO estimates that while decarbonization policies could generate up to 25 million green jobs by 2030, predominantly in Asia, it could also lead to 6 million job losses. This suggests the need for a green transition which is just and fair, creating decent employment opportunities, and leaving no one behind. The 2025 SDG Partnership Report on 'Delivering a Just Transition: Advancing Decent Work, Gender Equality and Social Protection’ produced by ESCAP, ADB and UNDP presents solutions and enablers for a just transition of the workforce in the process of greening the economies. To unlock the potential of a green and just transition, one enabler stands out: policy coherence.

Why policy coherence matters for a just transition

Policy coherence mitigates tradeoffs and maximizes synergies between and within different policy goals so that fulfillment of one goal would not come at the cost of others. Policy coherence among environmental, economic and social policies is crucial in sustainability transformations and in achieving 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 SDGs. In fact, SDG 17.14 target aims for ‘enhancing policy coherence for sustainable development’.

The challenge: policy incoherence is built in the current system of governance

The current system of governments is organized around sectoral ministries with siloed goals and structures. Such a set-up creates incoherence among policies and increases the risk of actions offsetting each other. Just transition encompasses several policy domains including environment, employment, energy, industry, skills development, and social policies, among others, which are separately formulated by different sectoral ministries with their sectoral goals, leading to conflict among the policies. For example, possible conflicts arise between decarbonization policy and employment policy in view of the Environment Ministry’s goal to decarbonize, whereas Employment Ministry’s goal to increase employment. 

As a result, it is possible to find the size of workforce growing in the conventional non-renewable energy sector of countries despite the goal of green transition set in their climate policies. Figure 1 compares employment in the non-renewable energy sector of some Asia-Pacific countries between 2015 and 2023. It shows that employment in conventional non-renewable energy sector steadily declining in some countries like Australia, Thailand and Viet Nam, among others. On the other hand, some countries experience opposite trends with their non-renewable energy workforce expanding. For example, though the share of jobs of non-renewable energy sector in the overall national employment decreased in India, the absolute number of jobs in this sector increased by 14.0 percent reaching to 719,800 in 2023. Similarly, Türkiye had a rise of more than one fourth reaching 75,300 jobs in non-renewables (Figure 1). 

Figure 1: Employment in non-renewable energy sectors across countries in Asia and the Pacific, 2015 and 2023

Source: ESCAP, ADB and UNDP (2025). Delivering a Just Transition: Advancing Decent Work, Gender Equality and Social Protection

Coordination across sectoral ministries can improve policy coherence 

The humongous task of coordination and oversight among sectoral ministries in the process of policy development and implementation cannot be performed by a single ministry under the current institutional setup. Although this needs to be done through a higher-level ministry such as Prime Minister Office (PMO), it is very often burdened with a large number of responsibilities. Therefore, this task of coordination is at times performed by National Planning Commission in some countries like Nepal or by creating high level inter-ministerial committees such as the provision of an Apex Committee for Implementation of Paris Agreement consisting of 14 ministries in India, or an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change to enhance whole-of-government co-ordination on climate change policies in Singapore. 

Policy integration: the ultimate pathway to coherence

Policy coherence can be achieved through policy integration, which refers to a situation where certain policy goals associated with one policy subsystem are also adopted in another policy sub-system. For example, incorporation of climate mitigation and adaptation objectives into sectoral policies can help policy coherence as well as ensure synergistic impacts.  One opportunity for such integration lies in how countries design and update their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Governments’ climate commitments, NDCs and other related national strategies, including the long-term low emission development strategies, provide policy direction and signal for coherent climate action.  As countries around the world continue to update and enhance their NDCs in the lead up to COP30, there is opportunity to embed just transition into them and improve  policy integration and coherence. 

UNDP, through its Climate Promise Initiative, has been supporting the integration of just transition into NDCs and broader climate strategies in over 50 countries and territories, including India, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam from the region. This support includes conducting transition impact assessments to identify trade-offs and synergies between policies and sectoral measures; facilitating social dialogue; strengthening institutions and policies; and providing capacity-building support. A critical step in ensuring policy coherence is to conduct assessments to understand tradeoffs and synergies among various sectoral and climate policies and assess the degree of their alignment. For example, in Viet Nam, UNDP has supported assessments of how e-mobility policies can drive job creation and achieve broader sectoral objectives—thus helping align climate, labour, and transport agendas to advance a just transition.

A whole-of-society approach is crucial for implementing coherent policies and realizing multiple objectives of a just transition

Mere policy coherence will not suffice to achieve just transition unless it is accompanied by coherent guidelines.    When it comes to the implementation of just transition policies, moving beyond a whole-of-government to a whole-of-society approach is necessary. The multiple objectives of just transition can be realized when there is integrated implementation with the coordination of government, private sector and academic institutions involved in providing new knowledge and skills. Moving from carbon-intensive to green sectors requires the supply of new and skilled human resources with the generation of new green jobs, otherwise the process of transition will be slow. For example, in response to the India’s pledge to reach net zero by 2070, a significant push for the use of electric vehicles (EVs) leads to a plan for rolling out of extensive charging infrastructure (400,000 charging points by 2026) which is possible only with significant supply of skilled workers by both the state and non-state stakeholders to install and maintain EV charging infrastructures. Reskilling and upskilling of the workers who are going to lose their jobs is equally important for a fair transition. The private sector, as a major employer, therefore, needs to plan ahead for the protection and capacity development of their employees in the process of transition. 

Summary of recommended actions for moving towards just transition

In summary, to address the challenge of policy coherence and coordination, it is necessary to: 

• Conduct reviews and assessments to understand existing policies and their level of coherence and possible impacts with their reforms.
• Integrate key concerns of the sectoral policies into NDCs, and the NDC objectives into the sectoral policies.
• Ensure policy coherence in the supply of skilled human resources with the generation of new green jobs.
• Set up an institutional mechanism for coordination among sectoral ministries and other constituents.

The road to just transition is not linear, but with deliberate efforts toward policy coherence, countries can unlock inclusive and resilient development pathways. Aligning climate, economic, and social agendas is no longer optional—it is foundational to deliver on both the Paris Agreement and the SDGs.

For more solutions and enablers, download the 2025 SDG Partnership Report on ‘Delivering a Just Transition: Advancing Decent Work, Gender Equality and Social Protection’ produced by ESCAP, ADB and UNDP.

Authors:

Bishwa Nath Tiwari, Professor, Tribhuvan University, Nepal/UNDP Technical Lead and Coordinator for the 2025 Asia-Pacific SDG Partnership Report.

Sangji Lee, Global Technical Specialist on NDCs, Green Economy and Just Transition, BPPS, UNDP, New York.