Climate Change and Sustainable Development:Realizing the Opportunity

Manifold linkages exist between climate change and sustainable development.Although these are starting to receive attention in the climate exchange literature,the focus has typically been on examining sustainable development througha climate change lens,rather than vice versa.And there has been little systematicexamination of how these linkages may be fostered in practice.This paper examinesclimate change through a sustainable development lens.To illustrate how this mightchange the approach to climate change issues,it reports on the findings of a panelof business,local government,and academic representatives in British Columbia,Canada,who were appointed to advise the provincial government on climate changepolicy.The panel found that sustainable development may offer a significantly morefruitful way to pursue climate policy goals than climate policy itself.The paperdiscusses subsequent climate change developments in the province and makessuggestions as how best to pursue such a sustainability approach in BritishColumbia and other jurisdictions.