Developing countries, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa, are urbanising without industrialising, a trajectory that leaves them with relatively higher poverty rates and share of slums.
Countries such as Mauritania have contributed little to climate change, yet face the worst impacts such as crop failure.
Oxfam International/Flickr
New data have revealed a disturbing trend in forest loss: the hearts of the world’s forests are disappearing. To stop them bleeding out, we’ll have to say ‘no’ to some developments.
A solar-powered microgrid in India.
Abbie Trayler-Smith / Panos Pictures / UK Department for International Development
Ambuj D Sagar, The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Developing countries need technical and financial aid to begin the transition to low-carbon energy now, not just pledges to invest in energy R&D with payoffs decades from now.
Saleemul Huq (left) says the world’s vision should be to help everyone with climate change - even the very poorest.
IIED/supplied
A majority of countries want visionary action rather than pragmatism at the Paris climate talks, says the International Institute for Environment and Development’s Saleemul Huq.
A key sticking point may be resolved at the Paris climate talks: but at what cost to developing countries?
Developing countries can expect much better outcomes from the Paris climate change talks compared with Copenhagen six years ago.
EPA/Guillaume Horcajuelo
African countries stand a good chance at COP21 of getting their ideas across. There will also be a better opportunity for these countries to access climate finance.
Australia could help Indonesia fight forest fires and combat climate change.
EPA/FULLY HANDOKO
Much of the world still lacks access to proper sanitation and clean water - an issue that needs urgent action. But without low-carbon technologies, clean water could come at the expense of the climate.
Access to the grid has crowded out solar in some places in India.
DFID - UK Department for International Development/Flickr
Given existing technologies, expanding access to electricity almost always increases CO2 emissions. There are real trade-offs between addressing poverty and climate change.
The penny drops? A fight over UN tax oversight was overblown.
Peter-Ashley Jackson
The World Bank recently forecast that remittances to developing countries will total more than US$450 billion this year, a bit bigger than Venezuela’s economy and more than double a decade a go. Given…
Handshakes as the Lima conference went into overtime to deliver an agreement. But there is still plenty of uncertainty about how next year’s Paris deal might look.
EPA/COP20
The world is a step closer to a new climate agreement that will see all countries, not just developed ones, take action on greenhouse emissions after 2020. The two-week Lima climate summit, which ran two…
UN negotiators will struggle to balance the demands of countries that want binding emissions targets, and those that don’t.
EPA/Paolo Aguilar
Could the preoccupation with legally binding targets sink the next climate deal in Paris in 2015? In the run-up to this week’s Lima talks, widely seen as a precursor to the Paris summit, the Abbott government…
Chinese president Xi Jinping and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
EPA/Harish Tyagi
At the UN Climate Negotiations underway in Lima, Peru, foreign minister Julie Bishop has called on China and India to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In her address to the conference on Wednesday…
Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop are bidding to repair the government’s tarnished reputation on climate - but have they pledged enough?
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
At the United Nations Lima climate summit, Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop has pledged A$200 million over four years to the Green Climate Fund, which seeks to raise US$100 billion (A$120 billion…