Learning by Doing: Co-Benefits Drive National Plans for Climate and Air Quality Governance

What drives countries to realize more integrated policymaking? The co-benefits concept highlights the win–win situations that can arise if one policy measure addresses two or more policy goals, e.g., air quality and health benefits resulting from a climate policy. Scholars have suggested that decision makers, if confronted with the evidence of co-benefits, would update their beliefs and adopt stronger or more ambitious climate policies. In other words, a learning process takes place. This paper looks at the policy processes in two countries, Mexico and Nigeria, as part of the Supporting National Action and Planning (SNAP) initiative under the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC). The SNAP initiative supports governments with policymaking and implementation for a reduction in short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs). This paper seeks to reveal how learning processes and their outcomes are influenced by co-benefits as a specific type of information. Looking at an example of how the co-benefits concept is applied in political practice offers valuable insights into how learning is part of the policymaking process and can shape its outcomes, such as national (climate) action plans.