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INTRODUCTION
Good climate governance needs to be at the centre of effective responses to climate change, including the disbursement and use of huge future investments.3 Currently the system of climate governance is diverse and fragmented, and lacks connectivity – and, by extension, accountability – to those most affected by climate change. Efforts to strengthen the architecture of climate governance will therefore have to build in safeguards against risk, including corruption risks, in order for decisions made to have collective ownership, legitimacy and, ultimately, meaningful effect at the international, national and local levels. The need for climate governance: science and the impacts of climate change
One starting point for assessing climate governance is to review the science of climate change (see box 1.1).4 The summary of peer-reviewed scientific knowledge of climate change shows that the problem is acute and that the world has to act immediately. The scientific summary also shows that those countries least responsible for climate change are those most likely to suffer, and those people who subsist on the land are likely to be least equipped with the capacities to adapt to climate change. In fact, as table 1.1 illustrates, the average per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the five countries in the world most vulnerable to climate change are 20 times lower than in developed countries, where the average per capita emissions are more than 11 tonnes per annum.5 Country
Global Climate Risk Index score6 (1990–2008)
Per capita GHG emissions per annum (tonnes CO2)7
Bangladesh
8.00
0.25
Myanmar
8.25
0.25
Honduras
12.00
1.15
Vietnam
18.83
1.10
Nicaragua
21.00
0.79
Table 1.1 Climate risk against per capita emissions
In such countries, it is projected that increasing resilience to climate variation will need to take place just to maintain current levels of development or there is a serious
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