Striking the balance
Climate change, equity and sustainable development
- Authors:
- R. K. Pachauri
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Pages
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97–105
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DOI
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10.1787/dcr-2011-14-en
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Abstract
R. K. Pachauri points to two important reference points for continuing discussions on development: the concept of sustainable development as a process that integrates political, social, economic and environmental dimensions; and the acceptance of the evidence that the world’s climate is changing. These two highly interrelated issues are at the root of mitigation and adaptation approaches that, applied together, can reduce risks – for instance, in human health and crop productivity – while enhancing people’s capacity to deal with the consequences of climate change. Addressing climate change means simultaneously addressing several challenges at once: for example, macroeconomic and other nonclimate policies, including development policies can significantly affect emissions, adaptive capacity and vulnerability. A wide variety of policies and instruments are available today to help governments create incentives to tackle climate change, such as integrating climate policies into wider development plans, defining regulations and standards, introducing taxes and charges, setting financial incentives and supporting research and development.
