SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This book addresses the two greatest challenges of our time – averting catastrophic climate change and eradicating poverty – and the close interconnections between them. The evidence that humans are causing climate change is now overwhelming, the brunt of its impacts is already being felt by poor people, and the case for urgent action is compelling. This text provides a comprehensive and multi- disciplinary foundation for understanding the complex and tangled relationship between development and climate change. It argues that transformational approaches are required in order to reconcile poverty reduction and climate protection and secure sustained prosperity in the twenty- first century. Section One of the book provides the building blocks for understanding climate science and the nexus between climate and development. Section Two outlines responses to climate change from the perspective of developing countries, with chapters on international agreements, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and climate finance. Each chapter offers analytical tools for evaluating responses, enabling readers to ask smart questions about the relationship between climate change and development as policy and action evolve in the coming years. The last three chapters of the book, contained in Section Three, are forward looking and focus on why and how development must be re- framed to deliver more equitable and sustainable outcomes. It sets out different critiques of ‘development as usual’ and explores competing visions of development in a warming and resource- constrained world.