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On the Road to Sustainable Development How to Reconcile Climate Protection and Economic Growth

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On the Road to Sustainable Development How to Reconcile Climate Protection and Economic Growth INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS On the Road to Sustainable Development How to Reconcile Climate Protection and Economic Growth BÄRBEL KOFLER AND NINA NETZER (EDS.) May 2012* n The impact of global warming in many countries is preventing sustainable devel- opment or even destroying existing development gains. Increasingly, droughts and flooding are depriving people worldwide of their natural bases of life or their dwel- lings and increase the risk of migration or displacement, not to mention conflicts over dwindling resources. n Climate change represents a grave development problem as well because it hits hardest poorer countries and particularly vulnerable population groups. They have the lowest coping capacities and have contributed least to global warming. n This disparity raises the question of how burdens and opportunities for climate pro- tection and adaptation are to be distributed fairly among the various actors or how the right to wellbeing and development can be reconciled with the principle of sus- tainability. The strong interdependence of climate change and development leads to the necessity for an integrated approach in order to generate synergies. BÄRBEL KOFLER AND NINA NETZER (EDS.) | ON THE ROAD TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Contents Foreword � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �3 Bärbel Kofler and Nina Netzer Climate Protection and Development Policy – New Allies in the Fight against Poverty? � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �5 Bärbel Kofler and Kristina Müller-Kuckelberg Preparing for a Warmer World – Adapting to Climate Change by Using Local Resources . 11 Anika Schroeder The Sustainable Economy Today – From a Development Policy Standpoint ��������������������������������������17 Hans-Jochen Luhmann The Clean Development Mechanism – No-Win instead of Win-Win for Developing Countries? �������������������������23 Nicole Piepenbrink New Market-based Mechanisms for Enhancing Climate Mitigation in Developing Countries . 29 Killian Wentrup Global Emissions Trading – Market-based Instruments for a Development-oriented Climate Policy? . 39 Severin Fischer It’s Up to the Politicians – Key Strategies for Combating Climate Change � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �45 Regine Günther Technology Transfer – Political Controversies, Successes and Implementation Difficulties ����������������53 Christiane Gerstetter REDDplus – Forest Conservation as an Opportunity for Development and Reducing Poverty . 57 Kristin Gerber What Is Climate Justice? From Principle to Political Practice �������������������������������������������65 Thomas Hirsch How much Is 100 Billion US Dollars? Climate Finance between Adequacy and Creative Accounting ��������������������69 Wolfgang Sterk, Hans-Jochen Luhmann and Florian Mersmann Climate Financing – Putting Its Money Where Its Mouth Is ���������������������������������������81 Frank Schwabe and Michael Meyer Human Rights – Signposts in the Fight against Climate Change? �������������������������������85 Theodor Rathgeber Climate Adaptation – Dealing with Extreme Events: »Loss and Damage« �����������������������������99 Thomas Hirsch Rio 2012 and Reform of International Environmental Governance � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �105 Nils Simon und Susanne Dröge 1 BÄRBEL KOFLER AND NINA NETZER (EDS.) | ON THE ROAD TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Foreword Climate change and development policy cannot be (iv) How are existing or proposed climate policy incen- considered in isolation from one another� Efficient and tives and instruments to be assessed from a devel- equitable climate policy and the implementation of eco- opment-policy standpoint and what roles are to be friendly and inclusive development models in all regions played, in the first instance, by energy efficiency and of the world must go hand in hand� Combining the two renewable energy sources? topics – which sometimes compete for financial resour- ces and attention – underlay the establishment of a (v) How can the institutional structures of international working group by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in 2010 environmental and climate policy under the UN um- on »Climate Change and Development«, comprising brella be supported, renewed and better reconciled MPs and representatives of academia and civil society� with development agencies? The goal of the working group was to take up important issues at the interface of the two topics, to develop posi- In recent months, the working group has been able to tions and to feed them into the public debate in order to provide significant impetus with regard to specific as- integrate policy analysis, policy debate and policy action pects of these questions, for example, climate financing, more closely� The group focused on five key issues: environmental governance and the relationship between human rights and climate change� The group’s work has (i) How can a just climate policy be designed and im- also found its way into public and parliamentary de- plemented that fairly distributes the burdens – and bates, among other things on Germany’s position in opportunities – of mitigating climate change and the climate negotiations or the future of the Millennium adapting to the changes that have already taken Goals in view of Rio+20� place between the various actors and regions? The present volume reflects the breadth of the issues (ii) How can transformation processes towards the de- and debates covered by the working group and presents velopment of eco-friendly and socially just econo- international energy and climate policy challenges from mies be strengthened? a development policy perspective� On some of the ques- tions, whose urgency was highlighted once more at the (iii) What financial, technological and administrative capa- UN climate summit in Durban, the authors formulate in- cities must be made available to developing countries itial answers and outline sustainable policy approaches by the developed and emerging countries to enable for a just climate and development policy� them to manage economic and energy policy trans- formation and climate-related adaptation measures? Dr Bärbel Kofler MP and Nina Netzer 3 BÄRBEL KOFLER AND NINA NETZER (EDS.) | ON THE ROAD TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Climate Protection and Development Policy – New Allies in the Fight against Poverty? Bärbel Kofler and Kristina Müller-Kuckelberg Introduction ment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorologi- cal Organization (WMO)� Its main function is to compile Combating climate change and the fight against pov- the main global research findings on climate change and erty are among the biggest and most urgent challen- to establish a broad-based consensus� The IPCC’s inde- ges facing the international community at the start of pendence and consensus-orientation thus takes account the twenty-first century� Although the impact of glo- also of scientific currents – even if they represent a mino- bal warming is not a new issue in development policy, rity so far – that are sceptical of predictions of the future the strong interdependence of environment policy and impact of global warming�1 There is now such a strong development policy has become increasingly clear in scientific consensus that advancing global warming is to recent years because of rising environmental damage, be attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emis- increasing heterogeneity in the development dynamics sions that the search for ways of reducing CO2 emissions of different countries and regions and the failure of un- and new growth paths relinquishing fossil energy sour- sustainable development models� Furthermore, progress ces has been given a major boost� However, it remains is sometimes prevented in both domains by conflicts of to be seen whether the search for solutions to the up- aims between mitigating climate change and combating coming challenges is being undertaken seriously enough poverty, as well as the debates on burden-sharing bet- and whether it is progressing quickly enough� Despite ween North and South, which tend to take place on the the increasing certainty about the facts concerning the climate and environmental policy stage� Without an in- impact of global warming, hitherto countermeasures tegrated approach that combines environmental and de- have fallen far short of what is needed� Global CO2 emis- velopment policy strategies and thus focuses on people, sions continue to increase and there have been virtually sustainable development cannot be fostered worldwide� no binding resolutions at the international level� Nicho- On the contrary, if the two major challenges of combat- las Stern (2009: ix) presents the discrepancy between ing poverty and climate change are not resolved ami- knowledge and action as follows: cably, gains in social or economic development will be nullified by the effects of progressive ecological damage� »What is more, climate change is a problem which arises from a build-up of greenhouse gases over In recent years, public awareness that global climate time and the effects come through with long lags change is an urgent problem has increased� Scientific of several decades . If the world waits before taking findings on global warming and anthropogenic CO2 the problem seriously, until Bangladesh, the Nether- concentrations go back to the early nineteenth century lands and Florida are under water, it will be too late and build on the discovery of the greenhouse effect by 1� See
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