Climate Change and Sustainable Development: The Tangling or Untangling of International Assistance

• In Event: 1149 - Scorched Earth: Climate Change, Energy, and the Sociology of Development

Abstract

The official arrival of the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, UNSDGs, sustainable development more firmly replaces more traditional economic development. Even though sustainable development now includes climate change via the UNSDGs, is there evidence that to support the blending of climate change and sustainable development investments on the ground? Otherwise, the specific funding streams for development versus climate change suggest an untangling instead of a tangling of development-related financing Whether they are tangled or untangled, more critically, are there sufficient financial resources devoted to a more integrated approach involving both sustainability and climate change? As we shall discover, these questions are difficult to answer but illuminate the development process related to climate change.

We became interested in these questions when earlier research in Belize revealed considerable investments categorized as mitigation (Brechin 2016). This is curious as Belize’s contributions to global GHG are tiny, 0.03% (source). This suggested that there either must be some sort misallocation or poor planning of development investments, or there is active co-mingling – tangling - of climate change and development funding categories, consistent with the idea of “climatizing of development assistance (Boyd 2008).

We draw upon primary documents along with the secondary literature on Official Development Assistance, climate change financing, the United Nations SDGs, and the reframing of development investments in an era of climate change. To explore country-level policy activities and on-the-ground investments we use Belize, Central America as a case to make our claims. We interviewed development experts and government officials (national and multilateral), among others, to investigate these questions. By examining a census of all multilateral development and climate change related investments in this small, vulnerable, upper-middle income country, from its beginning in 1981 to 2018, we hope to provide a useful comparative point for an extended conversation about other countries and regions.

Author

• Steven R. Brechin, Rutgers, State Univ of New Jersey