The Challenge

The Development and Climate Project is an initiative of 12 institutes from developing and developed countries.

It explores the idea that a less polarised way of meeting the challenges of sustainable development and climate change is to build environmental and climate policy upon development priorities that are vitally important to developing countries. The project focused on the potential that contributions by developing countries to the management of the risks of climate change should be seen not as a burden of legal commitments to be avoided, but as a side benefit of sound and internationally supported development. And this could then lead to an alternative strategy for establishing co-operation between developing and developed nations.
In many developing countries today a number of more immediate issues overshadow climate change: poverty, food security, health, natural resource management, energy access, and urban transport. At the same time, there are many good examples of development initiatives that also produce positive climate outcomes – often without any consideration for climate change. In China, for example, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 15% from 1996-2000 (when the economy grew by 35%) was accomplished using price reform, environmental improvements and energy sector restructuring. These measures were undertaken for their economic and environmental benefits and without explicitly considering the implications for climate change mitigation or adaptation. The Chinese example illustrates the potential for policies and actions to simultaneously drive development and address climate change. However, research on the links between sustainable development and climate change is only just emerging and mostly conceptional.
Expanding this research as a basis for developing policies and actions that strengthen the relationships between development and climate change was the rationale for the Development and Climate Project.