Today, 1.6 billion people are without electricity, and a three to five fold increase in electricity demand is anticipated in the developing world over the next 30 years. Meeting these energy needs, particularly for poorer communities, is pivotal to development. However, without a significant change of course this will predominantly be fossil fuel based electricity production that will exacerbate climate change.

Consequently, there is an increasing sense of urgency about the delivery of clean development projects, within and beyond the remit of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This involves a wide range of institutions, initiatives and mechanisms whose common aim is to enable the provision of clean development. The process of governing a transition to a low carbon economy in which clean development has an increasing role to play places actors, institutions and policy processes at the centre of the analysis.

Providing the right incentives for governments and in particular private sector actors, whose investments in energy, industry, infrastructure and transport will largely determine the fate of this issue in the years to come, presents a huge policy challenge. The scale of the governance challenge, requiring interventions across levels by a multitude of actors, is quite possibly unprecedented.

However, we currently know little about the governance of clean development: Which features of these actors, institutions, and policy-making processes are resulting in effective outcomes in terms of climate action and developmental benefits, which are not, and why? This is particularly the case when looking beyond the CDM itself at a range of governance actors active in this field and the multiple levels at which they operate.

There are two aspects to this, which our research programme addresses:

Governance from above: the increasing range of actors, public and private, international and regional involved in the supply of clean development projects and initiatives:

With regard to ‘governance from above’ a key focus is the CDM and the programmes sponsored and initiated by other public bodies such as the World Bank and bilateral donors. It is important, however, to go beyond the official public mechanisms and processes that exist for assessing, allocating and implementing projects for clean development. A critical examination of the governance of private finance for clean development is central to this research.

The scale of the governance challenge requires interventions across levels by a multitude of actors. It demands that we focus not only on delivering clean development through the institutions that work on a public to public basis, but that we consider the public governance of private finance as well as the private governance of private finance for clean development. These latter aspects are particularly neglected in current policy and academic thinking about responses to climate change.

Governance from below: the governance mechanisms and processes at work in the recipient countries which shape the likelihood that interventions result in the intended emissions savings and expected social benefits.

But which features of national and local governance systems make most difference to environmental gains and social benefits and why?

As ‘recipients’ of clean development, national governments are key governance actors. In the world of clean energy more broadly, the nature of their relations with key institutions, such as the World Bank, will be decisive in determining what levels of finance they are able to secure and on what terms. In relation to the CDM process, the host country is responsible for defining the ways in which projects contribute to sustainable development in their country and for setting up and enforcing rules and procedures to ensure this happens.

Our research programme focuses predominantly on the actors, institutions and policy-making processes in three key countries in the global climate change regime with sharply diverging degrees of success with delivering clean development: Argentina, India and South Africa. These case studies identify and analyse the decisive factors that affect the ability of countries and investors to realise social and environmental gains as a way of identifying opportunities for change and reform that will better harness the prospects of alleviating poverty and tackling climate change simultaneously.


By combining a range of research and outreach activities the project aims to make a significant contribution to research and policy on the governance of clean development.