Millennium goals and Climate-Change negotiations : for a climate and development convergence mechanism

In 2015 two major international events will coincide: the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris and negotiations on a new set of Millennium Development Goals for 2030, including measures to combat poverty. Until now these two dossiers have mainly been treated separately, but the stakes for development and the measures required to avoid unbridled climate change are inextricably linked, particularly in developing countries. In the build-up to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, this article presents a proposal which seeks to reconcile development strategies with policies on climate change and adaptation, by promoting various forms of synergy between these two fields, in such a way as to make satisfying basic needs an absolute priority and to clear up the dispute between industrialized and developing countries regarding the latter's commitment to combating climate change. Our Climate and Development Convergence Mechanism advocates an approach based on voluntary, sector-based, flexible participation enabled by output-based aid and indicators of the satisfaction of basic needs.