Climate and development: What opportunities, what threats?

The rise of climate change up the international agenda is an opportunity for development and poverty alleviation, but perhaps also a threat. An opportunity because the issues that climate change brings to the fore are similar to those that matter for development. Overlaps, complementarities, and synergies exist between investment and policies for development and those aimed at mitigating and adapting to climate change. A threat because trying to reduce emissions could come at the expense of international and national development efforts, and might be more expensive than traditional development strategies, meaning that funds and political capital are diverted away from development.

Five areas of concern arise. Two are conceptual, around framing, and three are practical.

We asked five distinguished scholars and practitioners from the global south to respond to these concerns, those of fairness, those of practical possibilities and obstacles. Contributors to this debate were, in alphabetical order, Adriana Abdenur, Habiba Daggash, Navroz K. Dubash, Jack Kimani, and Carlos Lopes.

Their responses greatly expand the arguments, but they can still be distilled into a dichotomy, even if a different dichotomy to that of the original framing. The five essays tack between norms and hopes, between realities and fears.

Norms and hopes: it is in everyone's interest to contain and arrest global heating; it is only fair that this should not be at the expense of raising the incomes and welfare of many millions, most of them in the global south, who live with poverty and deprivation. These two aims are linked: the consequences of a hotter world will impede growth and development across the world, and probably especially so in the global south.

As the problems are linked, it is not surprising that there are win-win solutions. At the core of limiting global heating is a switch to renewable energy. The global south, Africa in particular, has huge potential to generate solar power; a potential made all the more feasible by the falling cost of photovoltaic panels. The natural resources for the panels and associated batteries exist in Africa: as does low-cost labour. The world needs green energy, Africa needs jobs and economic growth, Africa has the labour, the natural resources, and the sunlight: challenge meets opportunity.

Reality, however, suggests that such promise will be hard to realize. International finance, public finance, for both development and fighting climate change has so far been too little: promises of funding made by rich countries have not been met, the little that has been given has often been counted twice. The reform of the global financial architecture has been incremental rather than radical. Private capital might meet the need, but such capital seeks short-term profit, sees green investments as less profitable and riskier than business-as-usual, business that includes developing yet more fossil fuels.

It gets worse. Disappointment with international negotiations and agreements, where warm words hide frigid inaction, fuels nationalist discourse in which short-term domestic priorities prevail, no matter what global problems are mounting. Details can become stumbling blocks: neither development trajectories nor carbon transitions can be one-size-fits-all. Those countries whose natural resources allow for scaling up renewable energy have easier and different policy choices than countries still sitting on large reserves of fossil fuels.

What makes the difference between fond hopes and everyday reality? Imagination is part of the answer. In the UK and some other HICs, there is a widespread belief that green alternatives are somehow more expensive than conventional means that pump out greenhouse gases—despite, for example, International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates showing that electricity from renewables is cheaper than that from coal, diesel, or gas (IEA & NEA, 2020).

Part of being human is wanting a better future for our children and grandchildren: parents make great sacrifices for their offspring. But most of those parents think short term when it comes to what they consume, to what they invest in. Consumers in HICs know that technology can improve their lives; they have become accustomed to next year's model being better than this year's. However, when it comes to green technology, there is no faith that investing in science will yield rewards.

We need better narratives about our long-term collective interests; narratives that are founded on current fact and plausible futures, narratives that reassure us that our combined efforts over the medium to long term will deal with the climate emergency—and deliver development.

This paper reports analysis of secondary sources.