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I N C LU S I V E G R E E N G R O W T H: T H E PAT H WAY TO S U S TA I N A B L E D E V E LO PM E N T
TABLE 7.1 Inter-ministerial arrangements for coordinating on climate change strategy in selected countries Country
Arrangement
Bangladesh
National Steering Committee on Climate Change headed by the Minister of Environment and Forests oversees the work of the Ministry of Environment and Forests’ climate change unit, which works with climate change focal points in each line ministry.
Brazil
Inter-ministerial Commission on Climate Change is chaired by Ministry of Science and Technology and includes the Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management, and the Ministry of Finance, among others.
India
Advisory Council on Climate Change, led by the prime minister, oversees climate policy. Coordinating unit within the Ministry of Environment and Forests implements the National Action Plan on Climate Change. Ad hoc inter-ministerial commissions will address the eight national “missions” identified in the National Action Plan.
Indonesia
National Committee for Climate Change includes representatives of all departments with responsibilities related to mitigation or adaptation.
Mexico
Inter-secretarial Commission on Climate Change, led by the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources and including the Secretary of the Economy as well as other line ministries and agencies, is charged with promoting and coordinating the national plan and associated activities.
South Africa
Inter-ministerial Committee on Climate Change coordinates government climate change actions and aligns climate policy with existing legislation and policy.
Vietnam
National Steering Committee headed by the prime minister and representing all major line ministries oversees the work of a unit within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment that is to coordinate implementation of the National Target Program to Respond to Climate Change.
Source: Governments of Bangladesh 2009; Brazil 2010; India 2008; Indonesia 2009; Mexico 2009; South Africa 2010; and Vietnam 2008.
in developing and implementing green policies. The Republic of Korea’s national green growth strategy (box 7.1) and many national climate strategies have already begun to reflect this reality. • The Indonesian Ministry of Finance has taken a leading role in national climate policy. In 2009, it issued a green paper outlining actions to support the country’s agenda on climate change (Government of Indonesia 2009). It was the lead national partner for a World Bank country study on low-carbon growth. • Ministries of fi nance in Morocco and the Philippines, among others, are undertaking climate change public expenditure reviews to help align spending with climate change and development objectives. • As part of Niger’s participation in the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience— which provides assistance for integrating climate resilience into national development planning—the Ministry of Economy and Finance will house a strategic unit to coordinate actions taken under the country’s climate resilience program (PPCR 2010).
Balancing relevance and enforceability Key dimensions of the needed balancing act between relevance and enforceability of environmental objectives include the choice of indicators with which to measure progress toward objectives; the time horizon over which environmental objectives should be selected; and the scale (national, local, or sectoral) at which environmental objectives are set.1 The choice of indicators. Potentially accurate indicators may be difficult to set or enforce, and easier-to-implement indicators may be less relevant. For climate change, a natural indicator for measuring mitigation is a “long-term carbon budget,” which measures global carbon emissions over the course of a given period of time, say, a century (Matthews and others 2009; Meinshausen and others 2009). But carbon budget commitments are difficult to introduce and enforce. Indeed, there is an incentive for decision makers to delay investments and efforts beyond their mandate. Another possibility is to defi ne emission targets at one or several points in time— such as the European objective of reducing