There is broad consensus on the need for international action to address climate change. Initial agreements were reached in the early nineties on how to structure the international response and on principles for equitably sharing the burden among countries. These agreements are embodied in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

However, as negotiations progressed towards implementation through specific obligations and actions, developed countries tried to move away from these initial principles and commitments, to avoid the share of the burden they had agreed to bear and to shift burdens and obligations towards developing countries. Currently, these attempts continue unabated and are at the core of negotiations.

Information on climate change issues is essentially generated in developed countries. Major media, NGOs and “think tanks” are located in these countries and funded by them. The overwhelming majority of studies on climate change are commissioned by governmental and other entities in these countries and most experts are on their payroll. As a result, views on the climate change negotiations popular with leaders in these countries get repeated everywhere, while alternative views, unpopular with them, get no dissemination.

4NA1! would like to provide a modest alternative to this groupthink phenomenon and to present instead a developing country perspective on climate change burden-sharing issues. The aim is to help negotiators from developing countries by offering them views on issues being negotiated in this global debate with interests of developing countries at heart.