Nicholas Chan talks about the politically sensitive negative impacts of mitigation action (response measures) on economic development. The article covers a progression of history, starting from the origin of the first decade of response measures, the second decade of institutional evolution of how response measures are discussed, the third part covers the evolution of discussions on the scope of response measures within broader context of trade, gender and health and concludes by capturing the country conceptions of institutional progress that arose in the negotiations leading up to the Paris outcomes and the compromises reached.