The Politics of Climate Change

Climate change accelerates the comeback of dengue fever in the Americas

When developing countries reject internationally-set limits on greenhouse gas emissions, it’s not as though they are taking a “heads in the sand” approach. Many developing countries—Bangladesh or the Maldives, for example—take climate change and its consequences very seriously. Their objections to the limits are largely about fairness; they argue that the countries responsible for greenhouse gas accumulation should bear the bulk of the costs of mitigation.

Another concern is whether rich countries can be counted on to honor their commitments. As the International Commission on Climate Change and Development puts it, “Those who do not trust one another to keep to commitments can rarely negotiate successfully, especially on something as complex as a post-Kyoto climate framework.”¹

Developing countries might be more amenable to binding emission reductions if they were persuaded that developed countries are prepared to follow through on pledges of support for adaptation and technology transfer. With recent history as a guide, though, it would seem that developing countries have ample reason to be concerned. Leaders of rich countries have promised many times to increase development assistance and failed to do so.² At the 2005 G-8 summit, developed countries promised to double aid to Africa to help meet the MDGs, but these promises have not been kept. Likewise, commitments to help Africa adapt to climate change were made but have not materialized.³ The Doha Round negotiations of the WTO opened in 2001, with one of its stated objectives to help poor countries gain greater access to markets in rich countries. In 2009, after years of rancorous negotiation, the Doha talks broke down and have not substantively resumed. In the United States and Europe, policy incoherence has been blatant. Just one example: the agricultural subsidies Congress permitted in the 2008 U.S. farm bill contradicted the Bush administration’s development objectives on Doha.

Building trust—or rebuilding it—must be central to any climate change agreement. Just like any other country, the United States needs to show that it can be relied on to keep its commitments. Pledges by members of Congress not to ratify any climate change agreement proposed by the Obama administration do not inspire confidence on the part of developing countries. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 not to pass the Kyoto Protocol. Twelve years later, much has changed in the United States, including polling data indicating that the U.S. public understands more clearly now the gravity of climate change and the need for international cooperation.⁴ But it’s not clear that Congress has been learning at the same rate as the public. It was disturbing that during the final hours of House negotiations on the Waxman-Markey bill, a number of representatives simply continued to challenge the fact of climate change.

A village in Sudan, one of the countries where the effects of climate change mean people already at risk of hunger are ever more vulnerable.

Climate change “deniers” are a shrinking problem. More significantly, climate change politics is reflected in regional perceptions of the economic costs and benefits. In the United States, energy politics tends to be more geographic than ideological. States where coal-fired energy production is important to the economy have a different take on what is politically acceptable than states forging ahead on renewable energy production. Similarly, countries’ positions on climate change and sustainable growth are to a large extent contingent on how economically developed they are. Poor countries are more focused on developing their economies now than they are on waiting to develop with clean, renewable forms of energy.

If climate change negotiations fail to produce meaningful progress, it will be the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that suffer the greatest harm; in fact, their development prospects will be severely compromised. These countries need a multilateral framework if their voices are to be heard at all. Africa is home to 33 LDCs.⁵ The cost of climate adaptation alone is estimated to be 5 percent to 10 percent of the continent’s GDP.⁶ African countries need every available dollar of development assistance and more, and they are understandably worried that international support for poverty reduction and economic growth will be diverted to climate change adaptation, a bookkeeping sleight of hand rather than a helping hand.⁷

The onus is on developed and rapidly developing countries to forge an agreement that will put everyone on a path to sustainable growth. The United States, the European Union, and other rich countries, as well as China, India, Brazil, and other rapidly developing countries, will continue to develop renewable energy technologies. They will invest and trade in these technologies as part of bilateral and regional political and commercial agreements. But poor countries have no technologies to trade, and the poorest and most vulnerable will be struggling under rising temperatures and rising sea levels, with large numbers of their people fleeing to wherever they can find food and a livable environment.

Increasingly advanced scientific models indicate that Earth is warming faster than previously projected. Working with developing countries to transition to clean energy sources and to adapt to the impact of climate change will not only reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, it will foster economic growth and poverty reduction around the world.

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