Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 08/2009

Assessing the Alternatives: Financing climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries

Stephen Spratt

May 2009

Oxfam Publishing

Abstract

The global climate is changing, fast. And this is the direct result of human activity. It is broadly accepted that we need to restrict global temperature increases to as far below 2°C as possible if we are to avoid triggering runaway, irreversible and catastrophic climate change. This is very probably the greatest challenge and danger that mankind has ever faced, and evidence is mounting that time is rapidly running out if we wish to “preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.”