Trade and environment review 2009/2010: promoting poles of clean growth to foster the transition to a more sustainable economy
This document focuses on promoting poles of clean growth to foster the transition to a more sustainable economy in developing countries that enhance resilience to the inter-related economic, food and climate crises. It advocates for the need for new mitigation and adaptation technologies on a massive scale, stating that early action on climate change (pre-emptive adaptation and mitigation) is more cost-effective than delayed action (responsive adaptation and mitigation).
It emphasizes the importance of implementing urgent and immediate adaptation actions to reduce vulnerability and build resilience of developing countries to impacts that are already occurring, in priority sectors such as: water, agriculture, food security, health, biodiversity, disaster management and coastal management. Key challenges highlighted in the agricultural sector include developing more drought- and flood-resistant crops and considering crop switching strategies. It states that it is also critically important to find ways of communicating information about climate scenarios and adaptation options to subsistence farmers and rural communities.
The document focuses on the 140 plus low-income and least developed countries, and contains some 20 essays from a wide range of experts on the economic, financial, climate and food crises, including two forewords from the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs of South Africa and the Minister of Trade and Associate Minister for Climate Change Issues of New Zealand.