The implementation of recommendations outlined in the latest UN climate change report will entail significant economic costs, but they will not be as high as the far-reaching consequences of the global warming exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) target, experts told Sputnik.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th October, 2018) The implementation of recommendations outlined in the latest UN climate change report will entail significant economic costs, but they will not be as high as the far-reaching consequences of the global warming exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) target, experts told Sputnik.
On Monday, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) unveiled a report, calling for drastic action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030 instead of the 2 degrees Celsius target agreed in Paris in 2015.
To meet the new target, global net human-caused CO2 emissions would need to be cut by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching "net zero" around 2050, according to the report.
According to Simon Dietz, a professor of environmental policy at the London school of Economics, the UN-proposed measures are likely to be costly, yet less costly than the climate change threat that could negate any economic growth.
"The measures required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will almost certainly be very costly, perhaps twice as costly, between now and 2050, as limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius. But they are not so high as to put global economic growth under threat. Effectively they would be like subtracting a small amount from the average global economic growth rate over the coming few decades," Dietz told Sputnik.
He noted that it was impossible to be certain whether the benefits outweigh the costs, while the window of opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius was closing, so it would be better to take action before it was too late.
"It is clear that there are many benefits to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and they might be enough to justify doing it. What is more, arguably we cannot wait to find out whether the benefits are greater than the costs. The window of opportunity to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is closing fast. If we want to maintain the option, we have to start trying right away. If we don't, the only ways to get there later will be by removing carbon dioxide from the air, which is currently very expensive, or blocking incoming solar radiation, which by general consensus is very risky and doesn't target the root cause of the problem," he clarified.
UNEQUAL PRICE OF CLIMATE (IN)ACTION
Runar Braennlund, a professor at the Umea School of business, Economics and Statistics (USBE, Sweden), shares the opinion that the new climate targets will have their economic consequences, noting an unequal distribution of economic costs among nations.
"How big [the consequences will be], is of course difficult to say without studying it more in detail. The consequences will fall differently depending on which country we look at. So for those who are very dependent on coal and fossil fuels, [they] will of course have problems. For other countries, there may not be such big costs involved in this," Braennlund told Sputnik.
For example, Sweden, which has relatively low use of fossil fuels apart from the transport sector, will not incur as big costs as the nations with a different energy mix, he suggested.
The economic consequences of the global inaction on climate change will similarly vary, depending on geography, according to Braennlund.
"Especially countries in the Northern Hemisphere and industrialized countries, in the northern part of the world will not face such terrible damages, whereas more in the south there will be much more severe economic consequences in terms of the agriculture, fishery and extreme weather events," he warned.
Speaking of economic incentives that government could create to stem climate change, both experts mentioned carbon taxation, emissions trading, and support for green energy among priorities.
"Economists emphasize the value of putting a price on carbon emissions and doing so worldwide. That price could be implemented via carbon taxation or emissions trading. Doing so would potentially save trillions in the end, because it uses market signals to find the cheapest and best measures. But we also need targeted support for clean technologies, particularly those we suspect will be vital in limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, such as carbon capture and storage," Dietz said.
Braennlund, in turn, stressed that emissions trading should have a global scale, with the participation of major global polluters.
"We need some kind of global tax, or global permits market. That, I think, is the only way to go. The big countries have to be in the ballpark too, that is the United States, China, Brazil, they have to be in the game too, so to speak, in terms of pricing carbon in one way or the other. That is the only way," the expert argued.
Therefore, the withdrawal of the United States, which accounts for some 10-15 percent of emissions, from the Paris climate deal will pose a real challenge, Braennlund opined.
"Of course things has to happen on the national scale but it has to be some kind of global action because I think otherwise we will be back to the free-rider problem ... The problem with the Paris agreement is that it is not binding. It's more or less a voluntary agreement, and that is because they couldn't agree on any binding restrictions. So the $10,000 question is how to get an agreement where we have a binding commitment," he noted.
Dietz also described President Donald Trump's decision to launch the process of US withdrawal from the Paris deal as "a blow to international efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius," noting that US efforts "outside the Trump administration (for example in California, and in civil society)" and similar coordinated action elsewhere yet could contribute to the common cause to avert dismal environmental scenarios.
