The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
The climate negotiations have finally begun to focus on the criteria for reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases to be agreed by 2015, and new pitfalls have emerged. The continuing negotiations over the past twenty years had a limited agenda. Developing countries were interested in finance and technology for capacity …
Background The difference between countries is whether international cooperation is to be based around the “green economy” or around the “green economy in the context of sustainable development and eradication of poverty”. The former implies that all countries can move towards more sustainable pathways without compromising growth, while the latter …
The theme of the Rio + 20 Conference was "Green economy in the context of sustainable development and eradication of poverty" and it has not been possible to the find common ground in the serious differences over what constitute economic growth and human wellbeing – ‘the future we want’. Humans …
The underlying issue is not trade rules but the global climate regime The concerted opposition to the EU push towards forcing foreign airlines landing in Europe to become a part of its emissions trading scheme has led to an unexpected development, whose implications extend to setting the global climate agenda. …
The new climate regime will lead to commitments only for developing countries, because the United States, which did not ratify the legally binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, continues to insist on a framework with nationally determined emissions reductions monitored at the global level. The unresolved issue is multilateral agreement, …
The task for global governance in dealing with climate change is to focus on the interconnectedness between carbon dioxide emissions, standards of living and global ecological limits. The interdependence between countries makes the global commons, or carbon sinks, a shared economic resource as well as an unprecedented global environmental crisis, …
What you measure determines policy Another round of the annual climate meetings is going to take place and the most ambitious outcome will be limited negotiations on some elements, because there is as yet no shared vision of the problem and what to do about it. The negotiations at Doha …
Very different global rules are needed for human wellbeing Averting climate change does not need emission reduction pledges, timetables and a common legal framework. Climate governance cannot be considered only in terms of environmental damage because it is now a part of the economic debate around the competition for scarce …
For growing economies the stress has to be on patterns of natural resource use and not on the status of natural resources; that is, dealing with the causes rather than the symptoms of the problem of climate change. The time has come for rapidly growing Asia to distinguish between the …
Lima witnessed the end game of a 20 year old negotiation around doing away with differentiation between countries at different levels of development and the beginning of negotiations on a global pact for sharing the carbon budget. It is all about geopolitics, not about the global environment. The Lima Call …
Technical examination and periodic assessmentswith respect to “fairness” and “ambition” are at the heart of the climate regime and involve important trade-offs; even in the Convention, negotiated twenty four years ago, in 1992, assessment and review (Article 10) was the very last item to be agreed. While the proposals are …
The developing countries must take the lead just as they have done in the transformation to sustainable development Mukul Sanwal[1] The United Nations process has been jolted with developing countries unanimously rejecting the text that was to be the basis for negotiations. Even more unprecedented is the lack of confidence …
Mukul Sanwal[1] The Paris Agreement shifts the global concern away from the sole focus of the Climate Convention on emissions reductions, which is really the symptom of the problem, to dealing with its causes, that is, human activities inthe urban transition.The Purpose of the Agreement, or the new global climate …
@sunitanar The much-awaited Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted by all members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Saturday. The Agreement will now be open for ratification by each member nation from April 2016 onwards. Some highlights from the draft text: Achievements for developing …
Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment, says first week of climate change negotiations at COP 19, Warsaw, haven't thrown up any major developments.
