When talking about the climate change conference in Copenhagen, people generally fall into one of two groups. On one side of the table, there are the optimists who gleefully hold their proverbial half-full glasses. Seated on the opposite end, the pessimists exchange forlorn glances and rueful shakes of the head.
Then there’s me. And I’m trying hard not to spill my cup.
I am absolutely, positively, unequivocally stoked about having the chance to go to Denmark and attending the COP 15. The conference will bring to the Danish capital 5,000 journalists, 15,000 delegates, 98 world leaders and an innumerable number of NGOs, protesters and tourists (not mutually exclusive). Looking past the irony that these two weeks will produce enough carbon dioxide to shame many small cities, one finds that it represents at least a signal of intent. Perhaps the words “green”, “sustainable” and “polar bear” are more than just fancy catchphrases that help sell Charmin toilet paper at Wal-Mart.
It all starts with intent, right? Optimist grin meets pessimist scowl.
The other day I had a conversation with a friend who raised some interesting albeit cynical points. He asked what possible [economic] benefit could come from mitigating climate change in the short term. When I answered that the economic benefit would be that there are fewer economic disasters in the future, he was unimpressed. The quintessential, self-serving man, he argued, could not realistically consider mitigation as an option because its costs outweighed the benefits that he would experience over the course of his geologically ephemeral life. When the time came, he continued, this man would be forced to innovate in the face of a crisis.
When it comes to climate change, I firmly believe that the best way to muster action is by making inaction prohibitively expensive. Richard Tol, climate economist and author for the U.N. climate panel, estimates that limiting global average temperature rise to two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels would require industrialized nations to impose a hefty carbon tax. By the end of the century, this tax would come out to approximately $40 trillion per year, representing a roughly 13 percent reduction in world GDP and bringing the cost of a gallon of gas to around $35. By comparison, he states that total damages due to the effects of climate change would be on the order of $3 trillion per year.
That means we’d be spending $40 trillion to avoid $3 trillion, in one year alone. It’s really no surprise more people aren’t excited about these economic policies. How then, should we go about implementing economic measures to transfer the enormous momentum of the carbon economy into the rise of technological innovation in the realm of alternatives? How can we vary them on the global and regional scale to align the market in a sustainable direction? I’m hoping Copenhagen will shed some light on these issues.
It’s time optimists and pessimists had something to toast to.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1945639,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517/Copenhagen-climate-summit-1200-limos-140-private-planes-and-caviar-wedges.html