Greenprint: A New Approach to Cooperation on Climate Change

Beleaguered by mutual recrimination between rich and poor countries, squeezed by the zero-sum arithmetic of a shrinking global carbon budget, and overtaken by shifts in economic and hence bargaining power between these countries, international cooperation on climate change has floundered. Given these three factors - which Arvind Subramanian and Aaditya Mattoo call the narrative, adding up, and new world problems - the wonder is not the current impasse; it is, rather, the belief that progress might be possible at all.

In this book, the authors argue that any chance of progress must address each of these problems in a radically different way. First, the old narrative of recrimination must cede to a narrative based on recognition of common interests. Second, leaders must shift the focus away from emissions cuts to technology generation. Third, the old cash-for-cuts approach must be abandoned for one that requires contributions from all countries calibrated in magnitude and form to their current level of development and future prospects.

Arvind Subramanian is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development with a joint appointment at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Aaditya Mattoo is the research manager for trade and integration at the World Bank.