Documents Corfee-Morlot, Jan 2 results

"Achieving low-carbon, climate-resilient (LCR) development is a policy goal of many governments today, and investment in built-infrastructure – in the energy, transport, water and building sectors – is a central part of the challenge. In the face of growing infrastructure needs and fiscal constraints, such transformational change will require large-scale private sector engagement. However, there is little policy experience on how to integrate climate and other environmental policy goals into investment policy frameworks and infrastructure planning. While many studies focus on the role of environmental and climate change policies to support a transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient (LCR) economy, this paper suggests that other factors play a critical role to achieve this transition. It starts from the premise that climate change policies and their effectiveness cannot be studied in isolation, but need to be considered in a broader national policy context, one that has the enabling environment for investment and development at its centre. This report aims to advise governments on how to create and improve domestic enabling conditions to shift and scale-up private sector investments in green infrastructure, to finance a transition to a LCR economy and greener growth. This report advances a "green investment policy framework" taking infrastructure investment as a starting point and looking only at climate change mitigation and adaptation. It highlights the significant opportunities and many challenges that exist today in both developed and developing countries to transition to LCR development through investment in both renovated and in new infrastructure. The report suggests it is possible to generate multiple local development benefits from LCR infrastructure investment. It presents a five-point policy framework to guide domestic reforms that can steer use of limited public funds while also enabling and incentivising private investment to support a transition across relevant infrastructure sectors to simultaneously deliver climate change and local development goals."

"There are local air pollution benefits from pursuing greenhouse gases emissions mitigation policies, which lower the net costs of emission reductions and thereby may strengthen the incentives to participate in a global climate change mitigation agreement. The main purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which local air pollution co-benefits can lower the cost of climate change mitigation policies in OECD and non-OECD countries and can offer economic incentives for developing countries to participate in a post- 2012 global agreement. The paper sets out an analytical framework to answer these questions. After a literature review on the estimates of the co-benefits, new estimates, which are obtained within a general equilibrium, dynamic, multi-regional framework, are presented. The main conclusion is that the co-benefits from climate change mitigation in terms of reduced outdoor local air pollution might cover a significant part of the cost of action. Nonetheless, they alone may not provide sufficient participation incentives to large developing countries. This is partly because direct local air pollution control policies appear to be typically cheaper than indirect action via greenhouse gases emissions mitigation."