At Chatham House, this morning, DFID’s chief economist, Tony Venables gave a somewhat elusive presentation on what developing countries want from climate change policy.
Taking it as a given that climate change will hit the poorest hardest, Venables argued that carbon trading between countries increases both efficiency and equity. Emissions are reduced in the most cost effective fashion, while income is distributed from rich to poor countries.
But all this depends on how property rights are allocated within the carbon markets. What DFID is surely thinking about, but not willing to talk about publicly, is what a fair share of future carbon emissions for poor countries would be.
Maybe Pakistan’s environment minister will have something to say about this later this afternoon…
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David Steven is a senior fellow at the UN Foundation and at New York University, where he founded the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children and the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, a multi-stakeholder partnership to deliver the SDG targets for preventing all forms of violence, strengthening governance, and promoting justice and inclusion. He was lead author for the ministerial Task Force on Justice for All and senior external adviser for the UN-World Bank flagship study on prevention, Pathways for Peace. He is a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of The Risk Pivot: Great Powers, International Security, and the Energy Revolution (Brookings Institution Press, 2014). In 2001, he helped develop and launch the UK’s network of climate diplomats. David lives in and works from Pisa, Italy.
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