World waking up to cost of climate inaction
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For many years, Nicholas Stern was one of the biggest pessimists when it came to countering climate change through international talks. All this changed though in December during the 2015 UN climate change summit in Paris.
The British lord, professor of economics at London School of Economics and author of the seminal 2006 鈥淪tern Review on the Economics of Climate Change鈥 recently told a forum held at Fudan University that 鈥渆ach time I go to international conferences I鈥檓 pessimistic, and each time I come back, it is even worse than I thought it would be.鈥
The summit in Paris was, in his words, a 鈥渢urning point鈥 showing that countries are finally coming together in a 鈥渞emarkable way鈥 to tackle climate change.
Speaking at a regular forum at Fudan鈥檚 School of Management, Stern claimed that agreements reached in Paris illustrate that countries are finally realizing the risks of sitting on their hands and doing nothing about global warming. Specifically, the summit was significant in that delegates pledged to pursue a goal of keeping global warming to two-degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels 鈥 while also pursuing efforts to limit average temperature increases to 1.5 degrees if possible.
Citing past scientific studies, the former chief economist of the World Bank warned that a two degree hike in global temperatures could be catastrophic.
For example, in a two-degree warmer scenario, the permafrost would start to thaw, resulting in a massive release in methane that would accelerate the process of global warming. Once ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic melt, the damage would be irreversible, warned Stern.
In his opinion, the Paris agreement is also important in that leaders now seem to understand that the alternative to high-carbon growth is attractive precisely because it doesn鈥檛 necessary mean sacrificing development, said Stern.
In fact, the Paris talks came after the UN reaffirmed its commitment to millennium development goals on sustainable growth. Having made it his mission to address the two defining challenges of our time 鈥 managing climate change and overcoming poverty 鈥 Stern suggested that these two goals are mutually reinforcing.
As he explained: 鈥渋f we fail on one, we will fail on the other; and we will fail if we try to do them separately.鈥
The failure to manage climate change will likely create an environment so hostile that it will undermine the successes achieved in global development, reintroduce poverty and push us back in development, he argued.
For a long time human struggles against global warming have been replete with failures due to a popular tendency to delay adoption of necessary, and sometimes painful, measures.
This is typically the case in difficult and uncertain times, when people are wary of making radical changes. Besides, when consensus on meaningful collective action is elusive many will be tempted to take a wait-and-see stance.
In Stern鈥檚 words, it might be tempting to wait for new technologies to solve our problems, or wait until we find somewhere to store carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere, but this would be 鈥渁 very bad policy, because the later we leave it to act, the more difficult it becomes.鈥
Decrying such heel-dragging in his latest book 鈥淲hy Are We Waiting?鈥, Stern said the advent of new technologies has driven down the costs of addressing global warming.
For instance, he lauded China鈥檚 role as a major producer of solar panels as it effectively makes solar power an affordable alternative to fossil fuels.
He went on to say that policy makers ought to adopt the right economic incentives to guide climate-control efforts. A typical wrong policy he sees is offering explicit or implicit fossil fuel subsidies, which some governments are still doling out to businesses.
鈥淚f we emit greenhouse gases and pollution and it costs us nothing, then we are doing something that is very costly,鈥 Stern warned.
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