Slow onset events by definition occur gradually and it might be expected that policy-makers as a result pay less attention to them than to immediate risks or ‘shock’ crises. If this is true and what can be done about it are important issues for climate change policy-making, given the gradual nature of many climate related issues.
Foreign aid agencies represent and champion global development priorities within a donor nation. Increasingly however, these agencies sit within donor governments that are strongly committed to upholding the national interest through their development commitments. This paper is concerned with how bilateral aid agencies manage this tension and how they might continue to serve the altruistic aims of development.
First-best climate policy is a uniform carbon tax which gradually rises over time. Civil servants have complicated climate policy to expand bureaucracies, politicians to create rents. Environmentalists have exaggerated climate change to gain influence, other activists have joined the climate bandwagon. Opponents to climate policy have attacked the weaknesses in climate research. The climate debate is convoluted and polarized as a result, and climate policy complex.
