Climate change mitigation

Though scientific evidence strongly indicates that some climate changes are now unavoidable, coherent action today still has the potential to mitigate some of the worst impacts. For developing economies, this presents a dilemma: their growth may be intimately linked to exploitation of fossil fuels, while the costs of green or clean technology may seem, at first glance, prohibitive. In such circumstances, how can a case be built for investing in climate change mitigation?

While support is available for individual climate change mitigation projects through initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), there are mixed views on how effective such programmes are for the least developed countries. Instead, a more appropriate response may be to identify potential for low-carbon growth.

With demand for sustainably sourced products and materials increasing, there are opportunities to set global standards in agriculture, manufacturing and mineral exploitation - and at the same time, raise prices. In other countries, the focus may be on adopting greener transport, building an infrastructure that is less reliant on (imported) oil, supporting renewable energy or restricting deforestation. The common theme here is an economic one: countries need to see the potential return on investment in mitigation strategies and be confident that it can outweigh the costs and risks of moving away from tried and tested approaches.

This requires thorough impact assessment and economic modelling – two areas in which OPM has significant experience – to help develop a macroeconomic policy that supports low-carbon growth. It may also entail work to train and build the capacity of policy-makers to enable them to assess the climate change impact of decisions and proposed initiatives in other areas, such as agriculture, transport or rural development.