The Least Developed Countries and Climate Change Law
This chapter describes the roles of the forty-nine least developed countries (LDCs) in the international climate change regime and climate change law. It investigates the following questions: How has the historical role of the LDCs evolved in relation to the climate change regime? What are the key legal challenges facing these countries? In order to address these questions, this chapter examines the role of the LDCs through five phases of the climate negotiations thus far: Pre-1990 (Phase 1), 1990—1996 (Phase 2), 1997—2001 (Phase 3), 2001—2007 (Phase 4), and 2008—2013 (Phase 5). Together, they have contributed the least to the climate change problem, but experienced the highest climate change impacts, because of their higher levels of vulnerability and lower adaptive capacity. The chapter also discusses how the LDCs are caught in the cross-fire between the emerging economies, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and developed countries.