Climate change actions for sustainable development

This paper presents the dimensions of climate change problem and its economic effects. Climate change is a global externality resulting to market failure as pollution sources, in most of the cases, do not take into consideration the full cost (including associated social costs) imposed by their actions to others. Damage cost estimates and various other issues related to climate change and concerning the significance of uncertainty and risk aversion are discussed. The methods of constructing abatement cost curves together with adaptation policies are discussed and the basic policy instruments for reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) are also presented paying attention to emissions trading schemes. Additionally, planning of efficient policies demands careful consideration of each sector. For this purpose, a number of abatement techniques to be applied potentially in each sector are proposed and discussed together with various aspects in the application of adequate policies to tackle the problem, like institutional frameworks.