Nicholas Stern is best known for his landmark Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. He is also a former chief economist at the World Bank. In A Blueprint for a Safer Planet: How to Manage Climate Change and Create a New era of Progress and Prosperity, Lord Stern has written a highly accessible book on the rather arcane subject of climate change economics.
For the concerned citizen who wants to enlarge their knowledge, without being bogged down in jargon and difficult economic concepts, A Blueprint for a Safer Planet provides an absorbing read that lucidly explains such concepts as emissions trading, adaptation and mitigation, the science of climate change and policy frameworks for reducing carbon emissions.
Cutting Carbon Emissions an Insurance Policy for the Future
The way Nicholas Stern presents it, climate change should be approached as governments or individuals would any risk assessment. While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does not say it is 100 percent sure that the heating of the planet’s climate is due to carbon emissions, it is nonetheless 90 per cent confident that the climate is warming due to human activity. This being the case – and as each IPCC report only becomes more certain on the science – it seems prudent to buy the planet an insurance policy against the high risk that carbon pollution is causing the climate to warm dangerously.
From an economic point of view, early investment in transforming the world’s economy to one that is low carbon will save enormous amounts of money when compared to a do-nothing policy.
Here is Lord Stern on the subject:
“We can ask the following type of question: given the probabilities of different climate outcomes under different strategies – for example, a 50% probability of temperature increases exceeding 5 degrees celsius under business as usual versus a 3% probability of the same if CO2e concentrations are held below 500 ppm – would you pay 1-2% of GDP for a few decades to obtain the latter or the former?”
As the above quote illustrates, there is no iron-clad guarantee that reducing emissions will solve the problem of the climate warming. The science does not provide 100 percent certainty. However, it points in a certain direction with a high degree of probability. The question for policy makers, and by extension the citizens who elect them, is how seriously the risk should be treated, and how strong the insurance policy taken out in the form of reducing emissions.
Developing Nations and Carbon Emissions
Nicholas Stern also does a good job of examining the vexed question of which countries are most responsible for climate change, and who should therefore pay the most. Most obviously, developed countries like America are the biggest polluters. China, a developing country trying to lift its people out of poverty, is now one of the world’s leading polluters.
Lord Stern highlights the need for developing countries to be able to keep industrialising, hence lifting more of their citizens out of poverty. The developed countries, he says, will need to share technology and help developing countries transform their economies to ones that are low carbon. This will involve a delicate balancing act, taking into account the various national interests and economic needs of developing countries.
Essentially it shall be a job of co-operate or allow the world’s atmosphere to get even more dangerously full of carbon emissions.
A Persuasive Argument for Urgent Action on Climate Change
A Blueprint for a Safer Planet is a book that will help the lay reader make sense of the often confusing media reporting of climate science and climate economics, while at the same time making a persuasive argument on the need for urgent and co-ordinated action by the world’s governments.
A Blueprint for a Safer Plant: How to Manage Climate Change and Create a New Era of Progress and Prosperity, published by The Bodley Head (2009). ISBN: 9781847920386
Chris Saliba - Chris Saliba is a freelance writer. Read more of his workplace articles at chrissalibafreelancewriter.blogspot.com
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