ABSTRACT
One important challenge of low-carbon development is to increase access to low-carbon energy technology for the world’s poorest people. Most lowcarbon innovation has been developed, designed, built and deployed in highincome countries and increasingly also in middle-income countries such as China, India and Brazil. The world’s poorest countries have only made a minor contribution to greenhouse gas emissions leading to climate change. Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are reported to have accounted for only about 4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 and only 0.3 per cent of historic carbon emissions from energy use (WRI, 2005), yet they are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (IPCC, 2007, 2014). It is therefore less a question of mitigating emissions leading to climate change and much more a question of exploring the opportunities and benefits that low-carbon development can have for the poorest and most vulnerable people. While there may be a risk that climate change mitigation could harm development in poor countries (Jakob and Steckel, 2013) there are also opportunities for linking low-carbon development with poverty reduction strategies, including through the transfer of low-carbon energy technologies. Hence, technology transfer needs to be pro-poor. Poverty reduction is seen as
a complex process that requires several strategies such as improved access to funding, human capital and technologies, as well as encouraging good governance, equal distribution of resources and services – such as education, employment, health care and energy access – and encouraging development.
