Climate Change and Global Development

The Colombian Forestry Program was created to conserve and manage forests. The 1,606 families in the Bajo Mira/Frontera communities collectivelly developed internal regulations to protect the habitat and ensure biodiversity.

The challenge of climate change will either move the world forward toward a more sustainable future, or drive a wedge between rich and poor and usher in generations of troubled global relations. The emissions legacy of the past, and the unavoidable emissions of the coming years, make it inevitable that climate change will worsen. To avoid the worst outcomes, adaptation—or adjustments that moderate harms¹—is critically important.

An inconvenient truth not mentioned in Al Gore’s award-winning movie, but affirmed by numerous studies, is that the poor—both poor countries and poor people in those countries—will suffer disproportionately from global climate change, particularly compared to their small contributions to the problem. The world’s 80 or so poorest countries are, as one study notes, essentially bystanders, or perhaps more accurately “drive-by victims,”² in this unfolding global crisis.

Climate change will almost certainly make it more difficult to achieve the MDGs, which are now the fundamental framework for global development.  The effects of climate change will be felt most in the lower latitudes, where the poorest countries are concentrated and where many people lack resources to see them through emergencies and hard times. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, by virtue of their size, population, and degree of poverty, will likely prove to be “ground zero” in a warming world, forced to deal with rises in sea level, desertification, and the resulting displacements of populations.

Rises in seawater caused by climate change are forcing low-lying island nations like the Maldives to prepare for the evacuation of their entire population. It is projected that by mid-century, 7 million people in 22 Pacific Island nations will be forced to flee as their nations vanish underwater. They are just a fraction of the total number of people who face being displaced. In Bangladesh and in India’s West Bengal state, more than 60 million inhabitants of the Ganges-Brahamaputra Delta are at risk. According to some projections, anywhere from 200 million to 1 billion people could become “climate refugees” by 2050.³

The Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence professionals have concluded that climate change is sure to worsen instability around the globe, and that the United States may have no option but to be drawn into the ensuing conflicts as struggles over scarce resources like food and water in places devastated by climate change become more desperate.⁴ We can try to head these crises off now, by investing in climate adaptations to boost the resiliency of especially vulnerable communities, or we can deal with them later, when military intervention may be the only response that looks viable. But it won’t be possible to ignore them forever.

Floods are increasing, even in drought-prone Africa

Greening rich economies, while highly desirable in itself, is just the tip of the iceberg in dealing with a complex global crisis. It will not address the climate change that is already underway. Unless and until renewable energy sources become viable alternatives to fossil fuels for everyone, it is hard to imagine how poor countries can develop without vastly increasing greenhouse gas emissions. It is estimated that between now and 2030, 87 percent of the increase in demand for energy will come from developing countries.⁵ They need energy to fuel their economies, and we cannot realistically expect poor countries to put off economic development until renewable energy becomes affordable to everyone. Poor people need to use all their available resources to make ends meet in the near term, including cutting down forests or depleting soils, both major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. They grasp the longer-term implications, but they simply have no choice.

The long-term solution must include a global agreement on climate change that encourages and supports clean energy development in poor countries, especially large and rapidly growing economies like China, India, and Brazil. Without special compensation, the already resource-strapped governments of developing countries will view economic growth and greenhouse gas reductions as a “zero-sum game.” When they are forced to make a choice, growth will be their priority. But in reality, it’s not a zero-sum situation. In the United States, “green jobs” can provide productive employment and promote energy efficiency and economic growth. Similarly, not only can economic growth and reducing greenhouse gas emissions be undertaken simultaneously in developing countries, but they can reinforce each other.

Climate change has made it clear that all countries must work in partnership—there are no national borders marked in the planet’s atmosphere. Emissions from coal plants in the United States and China contribute to the loss of farm land and rise in sea levels in Bangladesh. Cutting down forests in South America and Africa adds to the severity of hurricanes in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Unless a partnership is forged that spells out what each country must do to stem climate change, one step forward will be accompanied by many steps backwards.

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