Time for action on climate

Anew report authored by Lord Nicholas Stern sounds as optimistic as his landmark 2006 study. It is possible to simultaneously prevent climate change and to augment economic growth, claims Better Growth, Better Climate: The New Climate Economy Report, of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. Allowing fewer emissions would fuel growth better than the current high-carbon model. For that to happen, governments would have to redeploy the $90 trillion they are estimated to spend on infrastructure over the next 15 years towards low-carbon technologies. One of them is mass public transport networks that will connect compactly built cities, saving $3 trillion in investment cost by 2030, the report points out. Restoring 12 per cent of degraded lands can feed another 200 million people, raise farmers’ income by $40 billion annually and cut emissions from deforestation. Evidence is mounting that coal is the biggest killer fuel. The World Health Organization’s finding earlier this year is the latest. The seven million premature deaths that occur annually, it says, are directly linked to exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution, besides links between air pollution and cardiovascular diseases and cancer. The case for urgent change could not be more clinching. The climate report proposes phasing out the $600 billion current subsidy on fossil fuels and raising the $100 billion support to renewables. The result would be energy efficiency and poverty reduction.

The Commission’s ambitious action plan calls upon governments, businesses, financial institutions and cities to weigh the environmental risks and opportunities of their operations. The financial and non-financial performance of businesses should include an assessment of climate risk and resilience with disclosure to investors and stock exchanges. National governments should set a 2025 target on greenhouse gas emissions and a global annual target of zero or less by the latter half of the century. If implemented, says the report, the action plan would achieve 90 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, enough to prevent catastrophic climate change. As shown by several studies, no region is perhaps more vulnerable to its impact as the countries of South Asia, home to nearly a quarter of the world’s population. A recent Asian Development Bank study warns that many nations in the region would on average lose 1.8 per cent of their gross domestic product by 2050 in a business-as-usual scenario. The damage would be greater when the impact from extreme weather events is also calculated. As current targets to cut emissions expire in 2020, the UN summit being held today is critical to building momentum for a new climate deal in Paris in 2015.