Abstract
This book is a very solid and clearly written textbook concerning the interactions of climate change and development. The book’s central argument is: ‘It is now broadly recognized that climate actions and development decisions divorced from each other risk being ineffective and potentially counterproductive’ (p. 79).
The authors are a fellow at the Overseas Development Institute and an economist at the World Resources Institute. Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, the book’s overall flavour is very much a clear and informative guide to current policy debates about climate change, rather than a critical or deeply philosophical analysis of how development and climate risk interrelate. Indeed, the book is a step-by-step discussion of much mainstream thinking about climate change and challenges for developing countries. Its statements are therefore useful summaries of these debates, but rarely challenge these debates. For example, it states: ‘Stabilizing the climate will require genuine collective action and the active participation of developing countries’ (p. 83).
Accordingly, the book presents a very orthodox, and largely unsurprising, exposition of debates about climate change. It starts with an explanation of the scientific arguments underpinning anthropocentric climate change. It then provides an analysis of climate change as a development challenge by reviewing debates about mitigation (pp. 128–63) and adaptation (pp. 164–97), and means of financing both (pp. 198–231). It justifies this analysis by arguing ‘what we know about climate change stems from the work of physical and natural scientists… in contrast, development studies is the domain of social sciences’ (p. 80). But some analysts might argue that this is a rather literal approach to social science, which fails to problematize how scientific assumptions also predefine appropriate climate change policies and forms of development. For example, the book joins the united stand against climate change denialism by stating ‘the scientific debate about anthropocentric climate change has been settled’ (p. 308). But it does not acknowledge those social science debates that argue that defining ‘science’ in this way also closes down important questions about how climate risk and development are really linked, and where science still can offer new (and as yet unknown) insights.
For example, the book discusses energy-related emissions through the mathematical formula known as the Kaya Identity, which reduces global emissions to four factors of population, economic output, energy intensity, and carbon intensity of energy (p. 137). This is common sense, but it is also somewhat apolitical from a development-studies perspective. How far do climate change policies engage in a political economy of dictating who can, and cannot, participate in energy use and intensity? The discussion of mitigation also includes a discussion of land-based mitigation options, which are described as ‘most promising’ but ‘amongst the most challenging to implement’ (p. 149). There are useful (if brief) reviews of ways of integrating land-use change and climate change policy (p. 151) and technology transfer (pp. 106–08).
The book makes frequent references to questions of equity, such as: ‘poverty reduction and climate protection are interdependent challenges that share common characteristics. Notions of equity, social justice and sustainability provide common moral justifications and core principles guiding both (pp. 83–4). But does this statement mean that there needs to be equity in reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Or in allowing poorer countries the chance to catch up by industrializing and gaining greater market share? The book does not really make these themes clear.
Similarly, concerning adaptation to climate change, the book states: ‘development and adaptation do not, however, go hand in hand; although poverty is linked to vulnerability, the two are not synonymous. Unless carefully planned, poverty reduction and development efforts can actually heighten vulnerability to climate change’ (p. 70). Does this statement mean that adaptation can damage development? Here, the book does discuss the concept of ‘maladaptation’ (p. 171), which occurs when adaptation policies can work against development. It also contains an excellent table listing how different approaches to adaptation thinking (such as impacts-, vulnerability- and resilience-led) can result in very different styles of policy and outcomes (p. 179).
The third section of the book (pp. 233–320) contains a wider commentary on trends in development, and the need for a wider approach to social inclusion and redefining development beyond gross domestic product alone (p. 292). This section also includes a valuable table listing differences between neo-classical and evolutionary economics (the latter comprising elements of social learning) (p. 276). It also refers to scholars critical of global capitalism such as Ha-Joon Chang (p. 290), stating ‘the upshot … is that restoring trust requires a new grand bargain between rich and developing countries that places fairness and equity at its very centre’ (p. 290).
But the book’s underlying framework for this analysis of fairness is the idea that climate change represents a global change in the atmospheric system. This framework is backed up by a discussion of concepts such as Planetary Boundaries (p. 239) or concepts such as steady-state economics that reflect ideas of limits to growth (p. 279). There is no discussion of how these frameworks, in themselves, create common identities that can exclude more vulnerable (or less represented) social groups and countries. Indeed, these debates have become familiar within development studies, because they refer to how debates about supposedly common risks might overlook questions of who are included or excluded in notions of commonality. For example, the book’s final recommendations contain various exhortations to common identity in the face of a common risk. It urges that a future development agenda should be ‘universal in scope’, addressing ‘global public goods’, and implemented through ‘global partnerships’ (p. 319). Most people would agree with these objectives, but many social scientists would question how far these terms imply unity where there is actually great diversity, or indeed, intended inequality.
This book is therefore a very useful summary of current debates about climate change and development, based on an initial framing of the problem in terms of global greenhouse gas concentrations. This approach means that the book will be of most interest to students of economics or those studying the dilemmas of current climate change policies. It is, nonetheless, a useful introduction to the current policy dilemmas of climate change and international development.