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Feasible mitigation actions in developing countries

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 961–968 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Energy use is not only crucial for economic development, but is also the main driver of greenhouse-gas emissions. Developing countries can reduce emissions and thrive only if economic growth is disentangled from energy-related emissions. Although possible in theory, the required energy-system transformation would impose considerable costs on developing nations. Developed countries could bear those costs fully, but policy design should avoid a possible 'climate rent curse', that is, a negative impact of financial inflows on recipients' economies. Mitigation measures could meet further resistance because of adverse distributional impacts as well as political economy reasons. Hence, drastically re-orienting development paths towards low-carbon growth in developing countries is not very realistic. Efforts should rather focus on 'feasible mitigation actions' such as fossil-fuel subsidy reform, decentralized modern energy and fuel switching in the power sector.

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Figure 1: CO2 emissions and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.
Figure 2: Relationship between CO2 emissions per capita and gross domestic product (GDP) or household income in India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Figure 3: Mitigation in different emissions reduction scenarios.
Figure 4: Financial inflows and institutional quality.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank F. Creutzig, S. Hallegatte, N. Rao, E. Somanathan and T. Venables for useful comments and suggestions. Funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (funding code 01UV1008A, EntDekEn) is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PO Box 601203, Potsdam, 14412, Germany

    Michael Jakob, Jan Christoph Steckel & Ottmar Edenhofer

  2. Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), Torgauer Strasse 12-15, Berlin, 10829, Germany

    Michael Jakob, Jan Christoph Steckel & Ottmar Edenhofer

  3. Department 'Economics of Climate Change', Technical University of Berlin, Strasse des 17 Juni 145, Berlin, 10623, Germany

    Jan Christoph Steckel & Ottmar Edenhofer

  4. Georg August Universität Göttingen, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 3, Göttingen, 37073, Germany

    Stephan Klasen, Jann Lay, Nicole Grunewald & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso

  5. GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, Hamburg, 20354, Germany

    Jann Lay & Sebastian Renner

  6. Institute of International Economics, University Jaume I, Campus del Riu Sec, Castellón, 12071, Spain

    Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso

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Contributions

M.J., J.C.S., S.K., J.L. and O.E. were involved in conceptualizing the paper. J.C.S. and M.J. analysed data, conceptualized and produced graphs. N.G. and I.M-Z. performed analyses on inequality issues and S.R. provided household-level analyses. M.J., J.C.S., J.L., S.K., I.M-Z. and S.R. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Michael Jakob or Jan Christoph Steckel.

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Jakob, M., Steckel, J., Klasen, S. et al. Feasible mitigation actions in developing countries. Nature Clim Change 4, 961–968 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2370

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