Introduction

Much of the debate surrounding global climate policy focuses on the appropriate role for developing countries in mitigating global emissions—and on how industrialized countries can best support and encourage that role. Climate change is a global problem that requires all major emitting countries to undertake mitigation efforts; moreover, developing countries account for most of the emissions growth projected over the next century. If current developing countries are going to make significant progress towards greater prosperity while the world simultaneously seeks to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations at somewhere between 450 and 750 parts per million carbon dioxide-equivalent (ppm CO2e), developing countries are going to have to develop in a less GHG-intensive fashion than the already-industrialized economies did (Clarke et al. 2007).

Yet developing countries face considerable obstacles: they lack resources and place greater priority on economic development relative to environmental protection. At the same time, industrialized countries like the United States are well aware that their own efforts to reduce emissions can be thwarted if, through trade in goods and services, their emitting activities shift to non-participants in a climate agreement, or if their GHG cuts are simply overwhelmed by growth elsewhere.

The focus of this chapter is on the intersection of interests between developing and developed countries. How can developed countries—with more resources and, for the most part, a greater sense of urgency— engage developing countries in a cooperative effort to mitigate climate change? Part of the answer is an increasing awareness among developing countries that they themselves are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which will tend to make them more willing to seek cooperative solutions.