The Micro-Carbon-Financing Mechanism: A pro-poor sustainable development tool for the bottom billion

As the evolving landscape of policies and programs take shape to grapple climate change mitigation and adaptation, the "bottom billion" have been for the most part excluded despite being the most at risk. Efforts to directly reduce global poverty have also limitedly embraced cost-efficient sustainable growth, trending instead towards increasingly unsustainable livelihoods dependent on resource extraction and ecosystem degradation. Along a business-as-usual (BAU) trajectory development and growth will exceed the carrying capacity of the global ecosystem. A solution is presented in this paper that builds on the shortcomings of existing development practices. It will endeavor to elucidate the initial design of a holistic synergy between the conservation of ecosystem services and economic growth - the Micro-Carbon-Financing Mechanism (MCFM) - specifically targeted to benefit the "bottom billion." Typifying the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities," the MCFM will empower and sustainably fund the most vulnerable in our global community, allowing them to respond to climate change independently and on a scale harmonized to their livelihoods and impacts. By offering the "bottom billion" a new stream of monetized assets with incremental access to existing payment for ecosystem service (PES) schemes, namely carbon markets, the MCFM could potentially be a game-changing tool for responding to climate change and allow the poorest to self-determine their own sustainable development.