This article summarizes the findings of an international research effort, presented in this Special Issue, intended to identify the opportunities and challenges in creating institutional arrangements that could lock in, and exploit, a dynamic in which development policies alter socio-technical systems and indirectly promote various climate activities. In doing so, it also introduces and assesses intervention theory as a novel approach to analyse the link between international institutions and national policies. The conclusions are based on an analysis of Sustainable Development – Policies and Measures (SD-PAM), a precursor to National Appropriate Mitigation Action, a suggested mechanism in the current climate negotiations, built around a set of national case studies in Brazil, China and Mozambique, covering a diverse set of sectors – biofuels, bioenergy, agriculture and transportation. The article concludes that a mechanism like SD-PAM could play a vital role in promoting the changes in socio-technical systems necessary to meet the 2°C target defined as a precondition to avoid dangerous climate change. Most critically, it constitutes a means to provide recognition for national activities that are otherwise not viewed as climate policies. This could in turn generate (1) new commitments; (2) additional direct funding; (3) indirect financing in the form of tradable permits; and (4) different forms of technology transfer.