The challenge of tackling human-derived climate change has emerged over the past two decades to become one of the most important, yet divisive, issues on the agenda of the international political community. Within international debates, developing countries have historically portrayed themselves as innocent victims of profligate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the industrialized “North.” States from the “South” have successfully argued that a combination of low emissions, widespread poverty, and limited capabilities means that they should be exempted from quantified mitigation (i.e. emission reduction) targets.

More recently, the special status of developing countries has come under growing scrutiny. Against a backdrop of rapid urban industrialization in a number of the largest developing countries, the developing world will soon overtake the developed one as the leading source of GHG emissions. These shifts in the dominant sources of emissions are forcing the domestic GHG-related choices of developing countries into the spotlight of the international community, and they are creating pressures for high-emitting industrializing countries to commit to mitigation targets. At the same time, the ability and willingness of developing countries to contribute to global efforts in mitigating emissions will depend profoundly on leadership from, cooperation with, and assistance from developed countries.

Too Poor to Care?

A popular view of developing countries is that they are too poor to care about environmental protection. The environment, the argument goes, is a luxury good. Only when developing countries have satisfied their basic development goals will they become actively engaged in environmental protection. Although not without foundation, this caricature of developing countries is an oversimplification of reality. True, the immediate and most important task for low-income countries remains economic growth, poverty alleviation, and social development, which is hardly surprising. Yet countries’ core commitment to economic development should not be conflated with a complete disregard for environmental sustainability. Beginning in the 1970s, governments in the vast majority of developing countries have taken steps to protect the environment. Among others, they have adopted various environmental policies and standards and established regulatory agencies. Many have created high-level environmental departments and ministries, as evident in India’s 1974 national water pollution control legislation and its establishment of a Department for the Environment in 1980. The government has subsequently introduced a wide range of environmental policies covering areas as diverse as vehicular emissions, forestry management, and environmental impact assessment.

As evidenced by ongoing and often serious environmental degradation across large parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, environmental policies have generally been poorly implemented. To take one example: the much-publicized air and water pollution experienced in China over the past decade is not simply a reflection of inadequate policy, but also of weak enforcement on the part of provincial administrations. Indeed, in many developing countries, state environmental protection remains more of a ceremonial activity than a substantive one. Yet the very fact that the majority of developing-country governments have been willing to begin to address environmental issues indicates that norms of environmentalism—which prescribe environmental protection as a legitimate and worthy state goal—are not simply the preserve of rich, industrialized economies.

Similarly revealing about the existence of environmental concern in developing countries are non-state forms of environmentalism. A large body of work has demonstrated that, contrary to neo-Malthusian narratives, low-income groups may assume the role of active environmentalists. In particular, where degradation threatens the natural resource base upon which their livelihoods depend, poor communities have been known to protect, conserve, or otherwise defend their environments from destructive forces. Over recent decades, for example, indigenous rural groups in countries such as Bolivia, Columbia, and Ecuador have frequently mobilized against large-scale commercial agriculture, mining, and road building projects. Among the growing and politically influential urban middle-classes in rapidly industrializing countries such as Brazil, India, and Malaysia, there is also evidence of rising environmental concern—sometimes over the very same issues that have attracted the attention of environmentalists in developed economies.

Another noteworthy trend in many developing countries is the emergence of corporate environmentalism. Foreign transnational corporations and larger, outward-oriented domestic firms are beginning to make significant investments in environmental protection. Although some of these actions have been driven by government environmental regulations, there is also evidence of voluntary, beyond-compliance investments by corporations. Telling in this respect is the large and growing number of firms in rapidly industrializing countries that are certified to ISO14001, the internationally recognized standard for environmental management systems.

The important point is that it is wrong to assume that actors in developing countries do not care about environmental protection. True, awareness of certain environmental issues may be lower, and popular conceptions of what constitutes relevant environmental “problems” may often be different. Yet environmental degradation cannot simply be blamed on a complete absence of concern. Just as important are a basic lack of financial resources to translate concerns into substantive policy action and the immediate need to feed, house, and raise incomes among growing populations and politically unresponsive public institutions.

An Emerging Climate of Concern

Unlike many other environmental issues that have provoked environmentalism in developing countries, the major effects of human-derived climate change are likely to be felt only in the future. Yet this lack of urgency has not prevented climate change from becoming an issue of growing salience in developing countries. Underlying emerging concern is the recognition that shifts in climatic means (temperature and precipitation) and the frequency and magnitude of extremes (drought, storm events, heat waves, etc.) are likely to have far-reaching domestic consequences. These include the increased risk of flooding, inundation of low lying areas, decreases in the availability of water resources, lower crop yields, and increases in the prevalence of diseases.

In fact, there is general consensus among the scientific community that developing countries will suffer disproportionately from the future impacts of climate change and will face comparatively higher adaptation costs. Many low-income countries are located in regions that are likely to be exposed to damaging shifts in average climatic conditions, extreme weather events, and sea level. More importantly, developing countries are more sensitive to these changes than developed ones due to high levels of dependence on agriculture and natural resources, widespread poverty, and limited responsive capabilities. Across large parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, climate change is predicted to negatively impact the livelihoods, food security, and health of precisely those individuals who are currently most impoverished and least able to adjust to new or accentuated pressures. For example, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change is likely to be accompanied by falling crop yields in many areas of Africa where communities’ traditional coping and adaptation strategies are already facing multiple stresses. Over the coming century, climate change might well undermine economic growth and reverse many of the developmental gains made in recent decades. Abrupt, large-scale shifts in the climate system could have truly devastating consequences.