Low Carbon Growth Plans: Advancing Good Practice

The ‘Low Carbon Growth Plans: Advancing Good Practice’ report was authored by Project Catalyst, an initiative of the ClimateWorks Foundation, to provide analytical and policy support for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations on a post‐Kyoto international climate agreement. The report states that stabilising carbon emissions at 450ppm to ensure global temperature rises do not increase further than 2 degrees centigrade above the pre‐industrial average depends on our will and ability to make a fast transition to a low‐carbon growth economy.

The report refrains from defining low‐carbon growth directly, but does offer a series of elements that should be considered in the development of a low carbon plan. These are as follows:

1. Development priorities: how they relate with a changing climate and GHG emissions,

2. Baseline setting: development plans and obstacles, vulnerability, GHG emissions,

3. A long‐term vision for an economy with low GHG emissions and low vulnerability to climate change,

4. Adaptation plan, specifying what actions are to be undertaken to move towards a climate resilient society and economy,

5. Mitigation plan, specifying what actions are to be undertaken to move towards a low emissions economy,

6. Identification of what can be achieved without assistance and what could be achieved with international support, and

7. The incremental cost of all technology, financing and capacity building support needed to implement the plan.