Pro-poor low carbon development and the role of growth

Climate change adaptation and mitigation need to cut across all poverty reduction efforts, including any post-2015 architecture. However, low carbon development (LCD) debates to date have been mainly about high and middle-income countries. There are good reasons why even the poorest countries with low emissions might be interested in pursuing LCD. This article assesses the controversial role of growth for LCD. The article argues that we need to link up pro-poor policy debates with the low carbon debates as part of a post-MDG agenda. The paper explores several policy responses to LCD and analyses how pro-poor these policy responses are.