Mitigation of What and by What? Adaptation by Whom and for Whom? Dilemmas in Delivering for the Poor and the Vulnerable in International Climate Policy

Abstract

Despite notable advances in the “climate change-development” discourse and the rapid evolution of the climate-finance architecture, many of the fundamentally politicised issues that shape the existing dilemma on how to confront global climate change have been avoided or delayed. A largely market-driven response has not advanced an accountability-driven, long-term agenda, and competing interests continue to shape the discourse on adaptation and mitigation—thus influencing whose risk becomes predominant and whose impacts and losses are prioritised within and between states.