The Climate Change Convention and Developing Countries: From Conflict to Consensus?

The climate change problem can only be effectively dealt with if global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be reduced substantially. Since the emission of such gases is closely related to the economic growth of countries, a critical problem to be addressed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) is: how will the permissible emission levels be shared between industrialised (ICs) and developing countries (DCs)? The thesis of this text is that the long-term effectiveness of the FCCC runs the risk of a horizontal negotiation deadlock between countries and the risk of vertical standstill within countries if there is little domestic support for the implementation of measures being announced in international negotiations. This book explores the nature of the domestic consensus in specific developing countries and the common, converging, diverging and conflicting interests underlying the international consensus. It presents an account of the major North-South conflicts on this issue and explains these conflicts.