Beyond Johannesburg: policies and finance for climate-friendly development

Human activities are contributing to global climate change, especially through the emission of greenhouse gas (GHG). In order to address this environmental challenge, the international community is attempting to slow the emissions growth and to adapt to this new situation. The kyoto Protocol outlines the role that both developed and developing countries should play in the climate change response.This paper has three main objectives:proposing a set of policies where developing countries could achieve both developmental goals and reduce the greenhouse gas emissionanalysing policies that could convince policy makers to limit their GHG emission in order to gain financial aid from the Clean Development Mechanismadvising developing country governments “on what make sense to do when in terms of climate policy”Considering that the paper focuses mainly on policies aimed to decrease GHG emissions rather than to adapt to the climate change, its principal conclusions are:more commitment should be put in energy, transport and natural resource management in order to realise greenhouse gas reductions at sustainable costsin a medium-term period, developing countries could expect to become net suppliers in a global market for climate stabilisation services which is gradually developingdeveloping countries can obtain better results in terms of local air quality and health benefits of climate policy than developed countries that have already started actions for the reduction of carbon emission