The Political Economy of Climate Change and Development

Abstract

Climate change financing initiatives are an increasingly prominent part of international development activities, through mechanisms both inside and outside the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Engaging with political factors is crucial to ensure that these international initiatives achieve both their climate change and development objectives. This briefing makes the case for improving how global climate change initiatives integrate national and local contexts.

To do so requires greater use of political economy analysis to examine how initiatives are driven by political ideologies, how they are negotiated between groups with different interests and incentives, and the governance arrangements for their implementation.