The impact of climate change is global, but affects most especially those populations who, lacking technical, human and financial means, have the greatest difficulty dealing with it.  It is essential to support them and allow them to adapt to these changes by sharing low carbon technologies while supporting their aspirations for development.

Today, the projects listed in the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol with a North/South dimension (Clean Development Mechanisms - CDM) are mainly orientated towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions without necessarily contributing to the socio-economic development of the host countries.   As necessary as these projects are for the climate, it is imperative that they should include benefits for the local population; especially as they are implemented in the poorest countries.

GERES looks to see that, as a priority, the benefits of carbon finance are directed towards the populations who need it most.  The objective being to encourage fairness of access to this innovate financing, today received mostly by the emerging nations.

The work of GERES, in the South, is the training of local agents in carbon finance and the creation of a base for carbon competence, and in the North, it is the development of innovative methods of calculating savings in CO2 that encourage the inclusion of carbon finance in projects implemented in the least advanced countries (LACs ).

> In the sections of this chapter find useful information to help you understand both the human and climatic issues in the South.  Even if energy remains a central issue in the research on socio-economic benefits in the South, the question of adaptation is even more important, particularly  in order to reduce the vulnerability of the populations of the South.