CIAO DATE: 05/2011
April 2011
Danish Institute for International Studies
This report discusses possible implications of the international attempts to address climate change for the organisation of development cooperation. The paper concentrates on questions related to institutions and resources and pays less attention to potential consequences for the objectives and contents of development cooperation. The institutional question is limited to the norms, practices and organisations that emerge primarily at the international level in response to climate change. The resource question deals with the capital that needs to be mobilised to mitigate climate change and to finance the costs of adaptation to climate change in developing countries. The report begins by looking into the history of international climate change cooperation to provide a background for understanding contemporary negotiations. Subsequently, different institutional questions characterising the response to climate change are examined. The report goes on to discuss the issue of resources before it summarises the implications for international development cooperation. The report concludes that climate change negotiations are often framed as a South- North struggle and given the normative principles, such as ‘the polluter pays’, ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities’, and ‘per capita emission rights’, the South has a different and stronger bargaining position vis-à-vis the North in climate change negotiations compared to development cooperation. With a global deal on climate change the implications for how to organise development cooperation could be far-reaching, but as the South is a heterogeneous group of countries, as a variety of initiatives by countries in the North undermine the UNFCCC framework and as a global deal is as far away as ever, the likely consequences for development cooperation are limited in the near future.
Resource link: Climate change negotiations and their implications for international development cooperation [PDF] - 735K