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Climate Change
Climate change and development are closely intertwined. Poor people in developing countries will feel the impacts first and worst (and already are) because of vulnerable geography and lesser ability to cope with damage from severe weather and rising sea levels. In short, climate change will be awful for everyone but catastrophic for the poor.
Preventing dangerous climate change is critical for promoting global development. And saving tropical forests is essential to doing both. Frances Seymour and Jonah Busch's new book, Why Forests? Why Now?, illustrates how today—more than ever—saving forests is more feasible, affordable, and urgent.
- Jonah Busch: High Marks for the Paris Climate Agreement; Let Countries Trade Carbon
- Frances Seymour: Forests in the Paris Agreement — Plus Prizes, Protests, and All-Male Panels; Royal Jelly and “GNUs”: Postcards from the Paris Climate Summit
- Michele de Nevers: Financing for Adaptation to Climate Change: Ensuring the Most Vulnerable Are Covered
- Look to the Forests: How Performance Payments Can Slow Climate Change (report)
Historically, the responsibility for climate change, though, rested with the rich countries that emitted greenhouse gases unimpeded from the Industrial Revolution on — and become rich by doing so. Now, some of the most quickly developing countries have become major emitter themselves just as all countries are compelled by the common good to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A major challenge of reaching a global deal on climate change was to find a way for poor countries to continue developing under the planetary carbon limits that rich countries have already pushed too far. That will involve scaling up finance to deploy clean technologies, to adapt to the effects of climate change, and to compensate countries that provide the global public good of reducing emissions, especially by reducing tropical deforestation.
CGD’s research and policy engagement on climate and development has had two aims: to strengthen the intellectual foundation for a viable international accord to come out of the COP 21 in Paris and to provide data, research, and analysis that policymakers and others can act upon even in the absence of an international agreement.
Highlights
Graphics: Climate Change and Development in Three Charts
Initiative: Tropical Forests for Climate and Development
Book: Greenprint: A New Approach to Cooperation on Climate Change
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President Trump’s recent decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement—what does it mean for the agreement? For the climate? And for the US? CGD senior fellows Scott Morris, director of CGD’s US Development Policy Initiative, and Jonah Busch, coauthor of the recent book on climate change Why Forests? Why Now?, join this week’s podcast to discuss.
Last Thursday President Trump announced he’d withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement—a shameful act of self-harm. Condemnation has been swift, widespread, and gratifying. But if dangerous climate change is to be prevented then dissenting statements must be backed up with strong climate policies. Fortunately some countries, states, cities, and businesses are already matching words with deeds on climate. Here’s a rundown.
A decision by President Trump to remove the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement would be a shameful act of self-harm. The decision would hurt everyone in the world, and poor people most, by making it harder to avoid a future of bigger storms and fires, disappearing coastlines, and tougher crop-growing conditions. But the most severe and immediate harm would be to the United States, which by banishing itself from the community of nations trying to prevent dangerous climate change would irrevocably damage its global standing.
Here you can find and download or share all of the infographics from Frances Seymour and Jonah Busch's book Why Forests? Why Now? The Science, Economics and Politics of Tropical Forests and Climate Change. Learn more about the book here. Copies of the book are available from Brookings Institution Press and Amazon.com.
Most discussions of the linkage between forests and poverty—including one last week at the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF)—focus on how to increase income to poor households from the harvest and sale of forest products. But at least as much attention should be paid to forest destruction as a pathway to the further immiseration of poor people.
The international forest and climate communities have placed high hopes on the potential for compliance carbon markets to generate funding to reduce tropical deforestation through international forest offsets. At a meeting last week in San Francisco on “Navigating the American Carbon World” (NACW) it seemed as if these hopes are likely to be dashed. Or at least not realized in time to save the vast tropical forests in time for them to play a significant role in combatting dangerous climate change.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) could begin offering results-based payments for protecting and restoring tropical forests as early as July. That’s good news for developing countries, where tropical deforestation can be nearly half of low-cost emission reductions. Yet funding to protect forests remains low and slow, as Frances Seymour and I explain in our book, Why Forests? Why Now? As the GCF moves to enable results-based payments for forests, earlier initiatives offer valuable lessons on two things the GCF should—and can—get right: 1) keep rules simple, and 2) recognize that institutional procedures built for upfront investments may not always be appropriate for results-based payments.
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Paul Romer, the renowned growth economist, believes that the world can create dozens, perhaps hundreds, of new high-density "charter cities" to encourage faster growth that is greener too. Each charter city could be a place where millions of poor families could become residents, live, and work under better rules and lift themselves out of poverty. In this Q&A he explains the outlines of the idea.
Many poor countries, especially in Africa, will miss the MDGs by a large margin. But neither African inaction nor a lack of aid will necessarily be the reason. Instead, responsibility for near-certain ‘failure’ lies with the overly-ambitious goals themselves and unrealistic expectations placed on aid. While the MDGs may have galvanized activists and encouraged bigger aid budgets, over-reaching brings risks as well. Promising too much leads to disillusionment and can erode the constituency for long-term engagement with the developing world.
A natural outcome of the emerging pledge and review approach to international climate change policy is the interest in comparing mitigation efforts among countries. Domestic publics and stakeholders will have an interest in knowing if “comparable” or “peer” countries are undertaking (or planning to undertake) “comparable” effort in mitigating their greenhouse gas emissions.
This study surveys the current state of law as it relates to persons displaced by natural disaster, with a specific focus on the 27 member states of the European Union plus Norway and Switzerland.
The SkyShares model enables policy-makers to explore a range of different emissions policy scenarios. This paper uses the SkyShares model to explore one such scenario in detail.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is leading a UN initiative to deploy sustainable energy for all. Ahead of the June Rio+20 summit, Nigel Purvis and Abigail Jones highlight what the United States can do to help fulfill his vision.
Climate change will have profound effects on development, poverty, health, and well-being in coming years. Rejuvenated by the recent Paris agreements, efforts to channel the international funding commitments need channels for cost-effective mitigation. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) represents the best current opportunity to address climate change effectively with international funding. Unlike other institutions, the GCF is relatively new and is still developing its policies and procedures.
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