Standardising Climate Mitigation: The Transition Element Framework

The Transition Element Framework (TEF) is a structured approach for organising and standardising IPCC Mitigation Options to support data-driven decision-making, scenario planning, and collaborative climate action. It extracts, organises, and gives a common language to all Mitigation Options.

For more details, download the full Transition Element Framework white paper here.

Effective communication is essential in tackling climate change, but unclear language often creates obstacles. Ambiguous terms can slow progress and slow the coordinated, ambitious action we urgently need. Developing a standardised language and clear structure for climate mitigation will enable governments to make informed decisions and measure progress more efficiently. A common framework ensures everyone is aligned with a unified understanding of the strategies needed to address the climate crisis.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has built an invaluable knowledge base on climate change, offering extensive insights into climate mitigation in its latest Assessment Reports. However, this wealth of information is spread across tens of thousands of pages of text and tables, making it challenging to find and identify suitable Mitigation Options. This complexity creates difficulties for policymakers and stakeholders who need clear and accessible guidance to implement effective climate strategies tailored to their specific contexts.

Introducing The Transition Element Framework (TEF)

The TEF brings order and clarity to climate mitigation by organising IPCC knowledge into a structured and actionable format. It categorises Mitigation Options into clear groups and subgroups (a taxonomy) and adds an extra layer to show how these options are connected and influence each other (an ontology). Together, the TEF’s taxonomy and ontology create a structured roadmap for climate mitigation, allowing stakeholders to see what actions are available and how they work together to achieve climate goals.

Every Mitigation Option is ultimately centred on a shift of activity. Without changing the activity, we cannot change its associated emissions, and we aren’t changing the climate. To guide these Activity Shifts, the TEF uses outcome logic to thoroughly explore all aspects of reaching a mitigation objective. This process enables the implementation of the Mitigation Option, leading to the desired outcomes and impacts.

There are five layers to the Outcome Logic model:

• Interventions: Interventions are deliberate actions taken to achieve an objective. These represent the results of decisions made at all levels of government—local, regional, and national—such as laws passed, investments decided upon, and strategies agreed upon. There are three types of interventions:

  • Direct: Interventions that themselves have a predictable impact on an Activity Shift. A straightforward cause-and-effect relationship exists between the initiating intervention and the resulting change.

  • Indirect: Interventions that target associated factors or broader systems rather than the specific issue at hand. The cause-and-effect relationship may not be immediately traceable but can still be linked.

  • Enabling: Interventions that provide opportunities or support for other interventions. These aim to create a favourable environment for change.

• Attributes: These are the real-world outcomes of interventions. They are observable and measurable local elements such as cycle parking availability, average cycling speed, fuel prices, and road tolls.

• Behavioural Changes: Behavioural Changes represent the actual practices adopted by the population. These are influenced by how people perceive the attributes of their environment across different demographics and include aspects such as safety, convenience, status, health, and affordability. For instance, if cycling infrastructure is perceived as safe and convenient, more people will likely choose cycling over driving.

• Activity Shift: The Activity Shift is defined by actual changes in physical activity, such as the shift from driving fossil fuel vehicles to cycling and walking. Since the key objective of every Mitigation Option is to transition high-carbon activities towards lower-carbon activities, the Activity Shift is the core element of this model.

• Outcomes: The results of the Activity Shift. Outcomes are measurable and allow us to understand the impact of an intervention. Outcomes include environmental, social, and economic benefits such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, road maintenance savings, and less noisy streets. By quantifying outcomes, municipalities, regions and nations can assess the effectiveness of the mitigation options and understand the specific impact of achieving certain targets for Activity Shifts.

More on Activity Shifts

Activity Shifts are the core element of the TEF. A society is a hub of activities carried out by individuals and organisations to fulfil a need of that society (nourishment, shelter, transportation, etc). Every activity has a measurable amount of emissions, and the IPCC has told us how to calculate those emissions.

In general, there are three types of activities:

1. Behavioural Activities (things we do): The everyday actions we take. These are measurable things we do, such as kilometres driven by cars or square metres of buildings heated.

2. Production Activities (goods we produce): These activities involve the production of goods, services, and infrastructure. They include manufacturing, construction, and food production.

3. Extraction Activities (resources we attain): These concern the extraction, refining, and processing of raw materials and energy generation activities such as wind, hydro, and fossil fuel-based electricity production.

The TEF's number one principle is that we need to shift from high-emitting activities to lower ones to address climate change. This framework has organised and defined these shifts to be measurable, actionable, and aligned with the IPCC’s emissions guidelines.

Categories of Activity Shifts

Category	Description	Example
Type Shift	Transitioning from a high-carbon Activity to a lower-carbon alternative.	Shifting from gas boilers to heat pumps reduces the emissions produced by heating a home.
Resource Shift	Shifting from high-carbon resources to lower ones.	Switching to renewable energy sources like wind or solar instead of coal power plants for electricity production.
Utilisation Shift	Cutting down the frequency or intensity of the Activity, either by making it more efficient (to reduce how often it's needed) or by reducing the overall demand for that activity.	Implementing car-sharing programs allows multiple passengers to share a single vehicle.
Work Efficiency Shift	Making efficiency changes ensures less work is necessary to achieve the same result.	Retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency reduces the amount of energy required to maintain a comfortable indoor environment.
Resource Efficiency Shift	Shifting towards more efficient use of a resource means less of it is required to produce the same result.	Improving heat pump efficiency to produce the same amount of heat with less electricity.
Carbon Shift	Adding or improving Activities that sequester or utilise CO₂.	Carbon capture and storage (CCS) prevents industrial emissions from entering the atmosphere by catching them at the source.

The TEF originated from a multi-year collaboration between ClimateView, the Swedish Climate Policy Council, the Swedish Energy Agency, and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Co-developed with cities worldwide, including the Ruhr region in Germany and most recently with the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service (SCIS), the TEF has structured IPCC knowledge into an organised framework that helps cities, governments, and organisations better understand their options, plan effective strategies, and make progress toward reducing emissions.

As an open-source initiative, the TEF aims to leverage the global community's collective expertise, accelerate innovation, and enhance collaboration to make climate solutions more accessible and effective for everyone.

For more details, download the full Transition Element Framework white paper here.