In his blogs accompanying COP30, Neil argues that the current climate change narrative is misaligned (Part 1) and that a new narrative is needed, seeing climate policies as a vehicle for sustainable development (Part 2). In this final blog, he explains what this means for international cooperation on climate. 

Part 3: Arguments for international climate action

I have argued that government, the world over, should prioritise the developments that their citizens care about, and that they can best achieve this by implementing policies and programmes that also tackle climate change. Moreover, I claim that such a narrative would both be more politically popular and, consequently, more sustainable than one urging the implementation of politically unpopular actions to avert impending catastrophe. But there are two major objections to this argument.

The first is the sad truth that climate change will hit some countries much harder than others and that some of the hardest hit countries have the fewest resources to tackle the problem. This naturally points to the need for global solidarity through transfers of funding from richer nations – and in particular those most responsible for emissions – to poorer ones. This is entirely appropriate and there is some political support in most rich countries for helping poorer countries tackle the crises that they face (such as helping to build more effective ways of preparing for and managing disasters and adapting to climate change). Rich countries should provide finance for climate action in the poorest and hardest hit countries. 

But it is also important to be realistic about the amount of finance that will actually be provided. Unfortunately, the quantity of finance provided by rich countries to poor ones does not depend on the need; it is driven by the politics of the countries providing finance. Although there is a measure of support in most richer countries for supporting climate actions in poorer ones, the marginal political benefit of such largesse runs out very quickly. 

Even at the peak of support for aid, only a handful of countries reached the meagre UN target of 0.7% of GNI in aid; and budgets in rich countries are much tighter now. While useful international financial commitments will continue to be made (and some even kept), poor countries cannot rely on such commitments to fund the mainstay of their efforts against climate change. Although it is deeply unfair, for the most part countries must own, and fund, their own efforts to adapt to climate change and build resilience. Contrary to popular belief, the money is there. The share of public finances coming from aid is small, even in many poor countries. International public finance can help, but the mainstay of funding of sovereign nations already comes from domestic resources. Spending on climate adaptation does not depend on global climate agreements; it is a domestic political choice.

The second objection to the shift to a domestic development narrative is that climate change is a global problem and needs a global solution. Climate change is a free rider problem (we are all polluting the atmosphere and not considering the harm we are doing to others, or even ourselves). As a result, countries on their own will not do enough to limit emissions. We need collective action to solve the problem. 

This is true, but it is important to recognise that this is primarily true in one area of the climate problem – greenhouse gas emissions. Many other areas of climate action are not, mostly, collective action problems. One country’s efforts to adapt to climate change can still work, even if other countries don’t take similar efforts. One country’s efforts to build the resilience of its citizens are still effective, regardless of whether other countries do the same. But one country’s efforts to reduce emissions have a minimal impact on global heating, if other countries, or at least the major emitters, don’t do the same.

Initially, the international community tried to solve this problem by trying to get agreement on binding emissions quotas. That failed. Then, in a political masterstroke, countries were invited to come up with their own, voluntary, Nationally Determined Contributions. The idea was that, by repeatedly comparing commitments against what the science said was needed, we would encourage – or embarrass – one another into deeper commitments. In one way, this worked: countries have made gradually tighter pledges over time. But the commitments made have demonstrated clearly that countries will only go as fast as their politics allows. Sometimes country contexts and leadership allow for rapid action; but often they do not. The result is a large gap between country commitments and the collective targets agreed.

However, in some areas, emissions have fallen rapidly. This has happened not because of collective agreements between countries to do costly things, but because someone came up with a technology which is substantively cheaper than the existing one and which has lower emissions (e.g. solar and wind). Substantial emissions reductions are much more likely to occur where countries plough major investments into finding and scaling such technologies. Such investment is worth doing because, if a country pioneers such technologies, they can lead the market (as the Chinese have done on solar and EVs). 

In other words, climate aligned industrial policy to find cheap and effective ways to reduce emissions from energy, transport, industry and agriculture is likely to have a much bigger impact than endless rounds of COPs. And a major advantage of this approach is that it is no longer a collective action problem. Countries can compete to find these solutions; and the winners will profit handsomely from the solutions found. Emissions will fall as such solutions are adopted worldwide; and adoption will be driven, primarily, by the fact that the new technologies are better and cheaper than the old ones.

This does not mean that there is no role for international cooperation and collaboration in tackling climate change. Finding such solutions will often require countries to work together. Governments can encourage deeper technical and commercial partnerships – including reasonably free trade – to ensure the flow of ideas, innovation and finance. Building good partnerships will help all countries accelerate actions on the things that matter to each of them domestically. There is also a risk – indeed a near certainty – that richer nations are more likely to capture more of the benefits of new technologies than poorer ones. International agreement can try to ensure fair access to new technologies by poorer countries.

But note that this looks very different from the current COP system. It means domestic politicians, worldwide, focusing on the issues that their voters care most about and solving them with climate compatible policies. It means countries focusing their own resources on adapting to climate change, shifting from passive recipients of climate finance to active protection of their own people. And it means all countries investing in new technologies and processes to reduce emissions and sharing their experience and knowledge with one another. In short, the only way of getting consistent and effective action on climate change is to align such action with the development visions that domestic politicians can get elected on.