Tinkering with Climate Change Mechanisms While the World Burns: The Clean Development Mechanism in a Developing Country

This research examines the motivations and barriers for Malaysian business organisations in entering the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), an economic instrument formulated under the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC, 1997) and whether a similar mechanism under the Paris Agreement (United Nations, 2015) will advance sustainable development (SD) in developing countries based on the experiences of project developers in the CDM. Climate change (CC) is one of the three planetary boundaries being transgressed and policy makers grapple with continuing global warming and the means to ameliorate its affects (Rockström et al., 2009; Mathias, Anderies and Janssen, 2017). An integrated approach to both climate change and sustainable development is needed and this has been limited to date (Pinkse and Kolk, 2011) although mechanisms like the CDM have had the opportunity to integrate both. CC will have a major impact on developing countries, as many do not have the resources to develop and implement adequate mitigating and adaption procedures. Thus leading to a call for developed countries to assist developing countries with funding and know-how to tackle CC (UN, 2015)