III . 4 Equity , Development and Climate Change Policy

This chapter explores the relationship between an equitable sharing of emission abatement targets between developed and developing countries and their incentives to participate in an international agreement to control climate change. Although developing countries face a drastic increase in their emissions, environmental efforts are not ranked among their priorities. The obvious explanation is their necessity to continue their development process, which is characterised by pressing needs other than emissions. For developing countries, the real problem is not emission reductions but economic growth. Therefore, the key question is whether there exists a climate strategy which guarantees both environmental effectiveness and an equitable sharing of emission burden, where equitable has the meaning of avoiding economic burdens on developing countries in order to support their economic development. The conjecture to be explored in this chapter is that the only way to accelerate the participation of developing countries in climate agreements -and thus to come closer to the aim of a global climate control is to design equitable climate strategies which also support economic development. This chapter analyses different equitable climate strategies and their implications on developing countries’ incentives to cooperate on climate change control.