International Coordination to Address the Climate Challenge

Climate change is real, but its future is marked with uncertainties.We cannot predict the kinds of societies that will be faced with the most severe impacts of climate change 50 years or a century from now: What sort of lives will people lead?What kinds of technologies will they use?Still, we do know some things about the future effects of climate change, and with high confidence.Above all, we know that "developing" countries will experience the greatest impacts from climate change.(I put "developing" in quotes because many of the places to which this term refers are, in fact, not developing; today they are, regrettably, simply poor.)For the countries most vulnerable to climate change, the most reliable defense lies in economic development itself.The advanced industrial countries that have been primarily responsible for bringing about climate change will most likely not experience its most severe impacts.They have a responsibility to assist both poor and genuinely developing countries to find a path of development that does not exacerbate global harm.More urgent, it is unlikely that China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and other large emitters of greenhouse gases can be induced to participate in massive changes in energy supply and use without substantial assistance from the countries that can afford to assist.Bilateral aid is probably not the right approach for mobilizing such aid and directing it toward the most promising investments.For example, a bilateral relation between China and the United States to help finance Chinese energy improve-