Climate-compatible dev model mooted
Terming the marriage between development and climate change a wicked problem, Simon Maxwell, a leading thinker of international development, yesterday said that the starting point to solving that wicked problem is adopting a model of climate-compatible development. Maxwell was delivering the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Anniversary Lecture on Climate Compatible Development: Pathway or Pipedream, organised by the Bangladesh think-tank at a city hotel.
CPDs first Anniversary Lecture was held in 2014 as part of its celebration of a two decade-long journey. Following that, CPD decided to continue with the anniversary lecture on a regular basis. This years lecture was pertinent in view of the recently held COP 21 in Paris where the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted. Maxwell, who is also Executive Chair of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network and Chair of the European Think Tank Group (ETTG), was invited to deliver the CPD Anniversary Lecture.
While delivering his speech, the British-born thinker said that climate-compatible development takes place when three things come together, i.e. mitigation, adaptation and transformation. The idea of transformation is less often emphasised. It refers to the impact of global climate change on tradable sectors, including import-competing sector as well as export-oriented, and potential as well as actual sectors, he said.
He explained that all exporters are affected by the rising cost of transport or changing relative price of transport types. So, export-oriented growth strategies may not be as attractive or may require changing. Some developing country producers may benefit from exploiting demand for biofuels or opportunities presented by the carbon market incentives to conserve forests. Conversely, countries with a traditional economic reliance on exporting high carbon fuel sources such as oil and coal may be disrupted by a shift in demand to cleaner fuels, he said.
In this context, the key aspects of climate compatible development are how to foster innovation and how to put industrial policy back at the centre of the debate. Maxwell termed the outcome of the Paris Agreement as alarmingly modest. Some countries have done their share but many have yet to tackle the effect of global climate change, he said. Explaining his stance on the recent agreement on climate change, Maxwell said that at the heart of the Paris Agreement lies the long-term mitigation. Underpinning this was some hard negotiation, especially on the inclusion of 1.5 degree Celsius target and also the momentum imparted by specific pledges by 186 countries, in the form of voluntary Intended Nationally Determined Contributors (INDC). Adding up all national commitments, INDCs, shows that the world has so far formally committed to only a quarter or a third of the emission reductions needed by 2030 to achieve a 2 degree Celsius, let alone 1.5 degree Celsius, he said. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gas Report shows that likely emissions on the current trajectory before INDCs amount to about 60 Gt in 2030 while the level needed to keep the world on a least-cost path to 2 degree is 42 Gt.
