Climate Change challenges Development

At the recent FWCCC discussions in Bonn, the World Bank's new Climate Investment Funds, which are estimated to double the Bank's fundingin the next few years, were highly contentious among developing countries. The reasons why illustrate the conflict between 'normal' development and the Climate. The Bank was accused of, as research Tan from Third World Network explained, 'creating parallel frameworks of climate change governance which might undermine existing multilateral climate change regimes, despite claims to the contrary.'

Not to mention the Bank infamous history of putting on unpopular conditionalities onto their loans. Or the fact that the Bank still invests signicant money and valuable brain power and policy into encouraging coal and oil plants and specifically says it has no design to stop doing so even as it is creating funds for adaptation and mitigation.
This points to a particular challenge: financing climate change is not the same as 'normal' financing of development. The 'Climate Regime has been historically separate in part because it rests upon a fundamentally different premise (and history) than development. For most development agencies, the underlying goal is to 'help' developing countries become more like developed countries, entailing the underlying assumption that developed countires have 'got it right' and that their wealth and way of living is worth aspiring to. (though we should not let ourselves fall into the dillusion that development is entirely - or even mostly - and altruistic endeavor on the part of developed countries.) This helped to justify the conditionalities placed on, for example, World Bank loans.

The Climate Change Regime is premised on the opposite notion: Developed countries development pathway may have brought certain material (and some may argue social/cultural/political) benefits, but it has destroyed the environment through both the emission of fossil fuels into the atmosphere combined with the destruction of natural 'sinks' and invaluable natural resources to the extent that human survival is now in peril.

In crude, (possibly dramatic) terms: 'development' as epitomized by the Western world is dangerous to the planet. Developing countries should not follow suite if they have concern for the survival of the human species, and, as the North is now responsible for compensating the South for putting their vulnerable populations in further peril. Conditionalities on that support are thus morally unacceptable.

While the separation of development and the Climate Regime had value - though at times led to 'ossification', the enormity of the challenge meant that, inevitably, organizations such as the World Bank were bound to become engaged. they are huge players. At this juncture, separation is practically impossible. However, the appropriate role of development agencies has not been determined.

Developing countries urged that climate funds for both mitigation and adaptation be placed under the auspice of the FWCCC. this causes some challenges, as the Global Environmental Fund (GEF) does not have the same capacity, as, say, the World Bank for delivering dispersing funds quickly. But it does have a very important - and long debated - advantage:
it is governed by both developed and developing nations, unlike the World Bank, which is dominated by US and other developed countries.

Where the new funds will be located is a significant issue symbolizing historical frustrations and current moral agreements.

But even more significant is the implications for progress and development - the need, as people like Paul Hawken and many on this site keep reminding us - to redesign our economic system to be good for the environment and for people, not just for material gain for some. While sustainable development has been a goal of development for years,
it has rarely been truly 'successful' - especially not for the 'Asian tigers'. To truly learn the lessons of climate change would entail a revolution in international development assistance - one that the World Bank, at least, has yet to fully internalize.