by Michael Smith
The risks of inaction over climate change far more dangerous than the turmoil of the global financial crisis, a leading climate change expert said, while calling for new fiscal spending tailored to low carbon growth.
"The risk consequences of ignoring climate change will be very much bigger than the consequences of ignoring risks in the financial system," said Nicholas Stern, a former British Treasury economist, who released a seminal report in 2006 that said inaction on emissions blamed for global warming could cause economic pain equal to the Great Depression.
"That's a very important lesson, tackle risk early," Stern told a climate and carbon conference in Hong Kong.
The problem that remains, on the other hand, is that everyone seems to think that we can stop climate change. This could be fatal, especially if it is not man-made or caused to the greatest degree by human action. If climate change is a natural phenomenon to which the pollution caused by humans has added some things then we are in deep problems if we continue to go down the road thinking that if we can but stop climate change everything will be fine. It is important – more important maybe than any attempt on CO2 reduction – to prepare for the results of a natural climate change, whether this be rising waters or changes in growing climate.
As countries around the world move from deploying monetary and financial stabilization measures, to boosting fiscal spending to mend real economies, Stern said the opportunity was there to bring about a new, greener, carbon-reducing world order.
"The lesson that we can draw out from this recession, is that you can boost demand in the best way possible by focusing on low carbon growth in future," Stern said, including greater public spending on mass public transport, energy and green technologies.
Leaders at the summit also urged countries not to use global economic upheaval as a reason for delaying a deal. Partly as a result of the darkening global economic outlook, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently warned that 10 other EU nations backed his efforts to block an EU climate plan, prompting further doubts over European action on global warming.
Any deal would have to iron out differences between the United States, historically the largest greenhouse gas emitter, and rapidly developing countries like China, which by some accounts has surpassed the United States on emissions.
China, with its bulging output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas behind global warming, according to some experts (we must face the fact that we really do not know what has caused the planet to warm up – and apparently it may be cooling down again), was singled out by Stern along with the U.S. as pivotal in the talks, with the next U.S. president likely to be much more proactive than George W. Bush.
This may only be if Obama is the next president and the way this is being shaped here it would appear as if the decision had been made already. Maybe it indeed has been made already, though not by the US citizens in the voting booths.
"The U.S. and China will be the key leaders for a global deal. Either one of them could kill it, and I don't think either one of them will kill it."
Fresh back from a trip to the PR China, Stern said PR's next national economic blueprint, the five-year plan, would acknowledge China's key role to stave off a big rise in global temperatures, the melting of ice-caps and destructive rises in sea levels the world over.
He stated that he thinks that we would see the 12th five-year plan of the Peoples' Republic of China to focus on low carbon growth. Interesting to watch, methinks.
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
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Risks of global warming outweighs financial crisis
