Strategic approaches to climate change at country level – focusing on greenhouse gas abatement

National climate change costing studies would generally benefit from the strengthening of their strategic dimension, especially in the case of developing countries. This paper identifies shortcomings of current approaches and persisting organisational and process problems. An institutional set-up is suggested, as well as an attitude towards strategy development and planning. For the planning process two approaches are illustrated. Both are based on the same well known tool for strategy formation, but use it in different ways. The first is a classical approach that focuses on the higher planning sphere, while the second is a mixed approach intended to seek agreement between decision makers and members of a particular working team on climate change studies. The proposed measures and tools allow for long term planning and provide a better framework for integrating national studies and decision making processes.