WORKING PAPER #180FEBRUARY 2022KEYS TO CLIMATE ACTIONCHAPTER ONE | OVERVIEW: HOW DEVELOPING COUNTRIES COULD DRIVE GLOBAL SUCCESS AND LOCAL PROSPERITYAMAR BHATTACHARYA | HOMI KHARAS | JOHN W. MCARTHUR Keys to climate action Chapter 1 | Overview: How developing countries could drive global success and local prosperity FEBRUARY 2023 Working Paper #180.1 About Center for Sustainable Development Launched in 2020 by the Global Economy and Development program, the Center for Sustainable Development generates leading research and insights to advance global sustainable development and implement the Sustainable Development Goals within and across all countries. Brookings Institution | Global Economy and Development 1 AUTHORS Amar Bhattacharya, Senior Fellow, Center for Sustainable Development | Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution Homi Kharas, Senior Fellow, Center for Sustainable Development | Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution John W. McArthur, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Sustainable Development | Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the views of the Institution, its management, its other scholars, or its funders. Brookings gratefully acknowledges project support provided by The Rockefeller Foundation.Brookings recognizes that the value it provides is in its commitment to quality, independence, and impact. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment. This publication is an overview chapter of the edited volume, "Keys to Climate Action: How developing countries could drive global success and local prosperity. The volume editors are Amar Bhattacharya, Homi Kharas, and John W McArthur. Parts of this overview draw on an earlier framing paper by Bhattacharya, Kharas, and McArthur, “Why developing country voices will shape the global climate agenda,” published as a Center for Sustainable Development policy brief in July 2022. The editors thank Daniel Bicknell for outstanding project coordination and support and for his excellent comments; Odera Onyechi and Charlotte Rivard for tremendous research assistance; Gaoyi Miao for support on fact-checking; Madhulika Jain, Wendy Kneissl, and Mona Tiwary for project copy-editing support; and Junjie Ren, Andrea Risotto, Esther Rosen, Izzy Taylor, and the Brookings communications team for invaluable communications insights and support. Caren Grown and George Ingram provided extremely helpful peer review and comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. 2 The editors further thank contributing authors Hala Abou-Ali, Jean-Paul Adam, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Sara Jane Ahmed, Belinda Archibong, Théophile Azomahou, Chatib Basri, Richard Calland, Jean-Baptiste Carpentier, Amira Elayouty, Michael Hanni, Saleemul Huq, Mizan Khan, Mahmoud Mohieldin, Njuguna Ndung'u, Philip Osafo-Kwaako, Utkarsh Patel, Noel Pérez Benítez, Teuku Riefky, Vera Songwe, and Daniel Titelman for their fantastic collaboration on this project. The editors have drawn amply on the group’s collective insights and have sought to amplify their perspectives in the overview chapter. Many ideas in this volume were forged at an authors’ workshop at The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, and we thank the Bellagio Center team for their unyielding support and hospitality. The editors further thank Linus Mofor, Nicholas Stern, and Marilou Uy for insightful comments and discussions during the workshop. 3 Introduction From the dais in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados posed a simple question to world leaders: “How many more countries must falter?” Drawing attention to the profound and intensifying interconnections between climate change and economic development for billions of people around the world, the eminent global voice called for urgent action, “What will you do? What will you choose to save?” This scene unfolded on November 7, 2022, at the 27th gathering of the Conference of Parties (COP27) for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Dubbed the “implementation COP,” the Egyptian hosts sought to put human needs at the heart of the global climate conversation, with special emphasis on the views of people living in developing countries, especially in Africa. By the time the COP negotiations concluded nearly two weeks later, it had become ever clearer that future global climate talks will falter unless they elevate developing country perspectives. Issues of “loss and damage” dominated the COP27 summary headlines but represent only one of the many complexities developin