ABSTRACT
T HE PROBLEM OF CLIMATE CHANGE came to the fore in 1988 when NorthAmerica suffered a severe drought and an unusually hot summer. Not only did this lead to expert assessments being made and presented as evidence to the Congress in the United States,but the global concern for the phenomenon of global warming and climate change resulted in the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) through the initiative of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).At that stage, several suspicions existed in the developing countries that the scientific evidence being put forward in support of changes in the earth’s climate system were essentially a means to create impediments in the growth of the developing world, because one set of solutions being suggested was a shift to the use of new fuels that were low in carbon intensity.The cost of changeover to low-carbon fuels, particularly in societies that are expected to increase their energy consumption substantially in the future, could be a major factor inhibiting the use of these energy forms. No doubt, the availability of technologies that have evolved over the years in developed countries, resulting in higher efficiency in the use of energy, would ensure that developing countries need not follow the same path of energy intensity that has been the case historically with the developed countries. On the contrary, the developing countries can attain economic well being at much lower levels of energy intensity than has been the case with the developed countries. However, to ensure that the trajectory followed by the developing countries is less energy intensive,facilitation in the form of additional finance and access to appropriate technologies would make a critical difference.
