In the context of international climate change negotiations, the issue of the integration of Southern countries into a multilateral regime is a major aspect in the pursuit of the Kyoto Protocol. What synergies are possible between the development priorities of these countries and climate policies? How can this climate-development problem contribute to the reflection on the architecture of an equitable multilateral regime? What cooperation and motivations in this process are there for countries of the North and South? What is the link between such a regime and the particular conditions of countries and their national strategies?

This seminar was held in connection with the work of the Development and Climate Network created by Bert Metz (RIVM), with which IDDRI collaborates. This network brings together teams from developing countries, such as China, India, Brazil, Bangladesh, South Africa and West African countries.

Speakers & contributions

The seminar brought together researchers from the North and the South, former negotiators at the Conference of the Parties, members of international organizations and NGOs:

  • Daniel Bodansky (Washington University, USA), in Bonn Voyage: Kyoto’s Uncertain Revival, gave his views on the Kyoto Protocol and the negotiating process. He stressed the importance of a coherent link between a multilateral regime and national strategies. This text was published in the North American journal The National Interest, pp. 45-55, Fall 2001.
     
  • Ogunlade Davidson (Energy and Development Research Center, South Africa)
     
  • John Drexhage (International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada)
     
  • Tom Heller (Stanford University, USA) and Mike Toman (Resources for the Future, USA), in a text entitled Using development priorities to more effectively frame the debate over international climate change, highlighted the great difficulty of developing an equitable coordination regime and proposed elements of an alternative strategy for the short term
     
  • Jean-Charles Hourcade (CIRED, France), in the preparatory text for the seminar, Towards an Integrated Blueprint for Climate and Development, highlighted the main key elements of the discussion on the links between development and climate and the perception of these elements by developed and developing countries
     
  • Kejun Jiang (Energy Research Institute, China), in A clean future: sustainable development and climate change for China, outlined the main thrusts of a carbon emission reduction strategy for a fast-growing country such as China. In his view, the international collaboration on technology transfer could play a major role
     
  • Bert Metz (RIVM, Netherlands)
     
  • Saleemul Huq (International Institute for Environment and Development, United Kingdom)
     
  • Rajendra K. Pachauri (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
     
  • Emilio La Rovere (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
     
  • Jonathan Pershing (International Energy Agency)
     
  • Cédric Philibert (International Energy Agency), in Prix versus quantités. Quelques considérations économiques pour de futurs accords internationaux contre les changements climatiques, developed an economic analysis of the various forms of country commitments under a post-Kyoto multilateral regime
     
  • Atiq Rahman (Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies)
     
  • Priyadarshi R. Shukla (Indian Institute of Management, India), in a text entitled Development and climate: a view from the South, set out what, in his view, determines the position of Southern countries on climate change and the main obstacles to be overcome in the development of an international coordination regime. P.R. Shukla and Amit Garg (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India), in SRES and the Southern Perspective, provided a critical analysis of the SRES scenarios (IPCC special report on emission scenarios, 2000) with regard to the phenomena at work in the countries of the South
     
  • Youba Sokona (Enda, Senegal)
     
  • Jean-Philippe Thomas (Enda, Senegal)
     
  • Laurence Tubiana (IDDRI, France).