Climate change impacts and adaptations lessons le

Authors: Channing Arndt Finn Tarp

Publish Date: 2015/04/17

Volume: 130, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-8

PDF Link

Abstract

In this article we assert that developing countries are much better prepared to undertake negotiations at the Conference of the Parties in Paris CoP21 as compared to CoP15 in Copenhagen An important element of this is the accumulation of knowledge with respect to the implications of climate change and the ongoing internalization thereof by key institutions in developing countries The articles in this special issue set forth a set of technical contributions to this improved understanding We also summarize five major lessons related to uncertainty extreme events timing of impacts the inseparability of the development and climate agendas and the rate of assimilation of climate and development information in key institutions They are drawn from the Development Under Climate Change DUCC project carried out by UNUWIDER of which the countries of the Greater Zambeze Valley formed a part Finally we outline three areas for future researchIn December 2009 the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties CoP to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change took place in Copenhagen Denmark During the run up to CoP15 both of the authors of this introductory article were professors in the Department of Economics at the University of Copenhagen with long established interests in development issues and emerging interests in climate change especially the implications of climate change for development trajectories and strategies CoP15 promised to pay particular attention to development issues not least the complications added by climate change to the already arduous development challenges facing these countries in general and low income countries in particular As such the impending CoP15 negotiations were impossible for us to ignoreOver the course of 2009 our assessment of the likelihood of success of CoP15 became increasingly pessimistic This pessimism was certainly not uniquely harbored in ourselves For example a November 8 2009 article in Time magazine questioned in the headline “Is there any hope for agreement at Copenhagen” However our particular concerns were rooted in our cumulative observations as development professionals considering the implications of climate change in progressively greater detail Simply put not enough was known about climate change and its implications for development trajectories and strategies to permit effective negotiation This was in our view true across the full slate of negotiating parties To be sure developed country negotiators were well versed in the latest climate science and at a minimum had access to the latest thinking on the implications of climate for developing countries However this latter information base was at the time at best poorly developed and highly fragmentary Even in major international institutions concerned with development issues the process of assimilating the existing information was in initial stagesMore importantly the existing inadequate information base had barely begun to penetrate key decisionmaking units within developing countries In particular rigorous analysis of the implications of climate change for overall growth and development prospects was essentially not present much less comprehensively debated and internalized in any country of which we were aware This was in our view deeply problematic One wondered how developing countries could effectively negotiate before key decisionmaking institutions within those countries had really even begun to come to grips with the issuesIn contrast to CoP15 we view the upcoming CoP21 negotiations with guarded optimism Once again there are many sources for this more positive outlook including the offer style negotiation format and the recent announcement of commitments from China and the United States We also believe that considerable progress in understanding the implications of climate change for development trajectories and for development strategies ranks as a major contributor This is to the credit of tens of thousands of people working in thousands of institutions within nearly all of the countries on the globe As emphasized above the information needs not only to be present it must also be debated and internalizedThe subsequent articles in this special issue set forth a set of technical contributions to this improved understanding These contributions stem from the Development Under Climate Change DUCC project undertaken by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University UNUWIDER The DUCC program was a direct result of the observations described above Under DUCC detailed country level analysis focused on growth and development prospects in countries containing the Zambeze River Valley ZRV as well as in Ethiopia Ghana South Africa Tanzania and VietnamHere in this introductory article we focus on some of the major lessons that have been learned since CoP15 including thoughts on how these lessons are being incorporated into ongoing development policy thinking at the country level While the articles in this issue focus on the countries of the ZRV we draw here not only upon this experience but also on experience accumulated in work in the other countries mentioned just above as well as the extant literature As such this introductory article departs from the practice of principally summarizing/synthesizing the articles in the special issue The final article in this special issue undertakes this task alongside the presentation of new information

Keywords: