The Worst of Friends: OPEC and G-77 in the Climate Regime

Jon Barnett
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Jon Barnett: Jon Barnett is an Australian Research Council Fellow in the Department of Resource Management and Geography at Melbourne University. He is a political geographer who has published on adaptation to climate change in the South Paciªc, climate change politics and policy, environmental security, and water resource management in China. His publications in 2008 include: "Peace and Development: Towards a New Synthesis," Journal of Peace Research; "The Effect of Aid on Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change: Insights from Niue," Political Science; "The Ambiguities of Environmental Degradation and Violence: The Case of the Tolukuma Gold Mine," Society and Natural Resources; and "The Yellow River in Transition," Environmental Science and Policy.

Global Environmental Politics, 2008, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-8

Abstract: In the climate change negotiations the thirteen countries that are members of OPEC obstruct progress towards reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Although these actions undermine sustainable development in developing countries, the larger Group of 77 (G-77) coalition nevertheless tacitly supports its OPEC members in the climate regime. This article explains the connection between OPEC's interests in oil exports and its inaction on climate change, and the divergence of these interests with those of the G-77. It argues that OPEC's influence within the G-77, and therefore the climate regime, stems from the desire to maintain unity within the G-77. This unity has and is likely to continue to cost the majority of developing countries in the form delayed assistance for adaptation, the possibility of inadequate reduction in emissions under the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, and continued dependence on increasingly expensive oil imports. (c) 2008 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2008
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