Developing economies in the current climate change regime : New prospects for resilience and sustainability? The case of CDM projects in Asia

The paper focuses on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as a major tool for integrating developing economies in the world climate regime. Our research investigates how this market-based instrument has triggered more ambitious climate change policies in developing countries, which in turn also influences national interests in UNFCCC negotiations and consequently the effectiveness of the whole process as such. Our analysis first provides an overview of conceptual aspects of CDM as a tool for climate policies in developing countries. It then places special emphasis on the Asian region as the world's major host of CDM projects, in spite of wide disparities in national levels of development and energy consumption. The Asian region reveals differentiated experiences and strategic appropriation of the CDM mechanism, in particular by China to strengthen renewable energy supply and foster technology transfer - this is in spite of strong sectoral concentration bias and limited additionality of funds. CDM projects have thus contributed to increased resilience through upgrading of energy strategy and also to institutional build up to address domestic issues of climate change mitigation.