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Paying the price for climate change
Lord Nicholas Stern
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TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Kai Ryssdal: There's going to be big climate-change meeting in New York on Tuesday. President Obama will be there, as will other world leaders. They're trying to break a deadlock between rich and poor countries on who's going to do how much to cut back on greenhouse-gas emissions. And who's going to pay for it.
Three years ago Nicholas Stern wrote the study on the economic costs of climate change and of doing nothing. Then he was working for the British chancellor of the exchequer, their Treasury Department. Now he runs the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. Professor Stern, good to have you with us.
NICHOLAS STERN: Pleasure to talk to you.
Ryssdal: If we decided right now that we were going to pay whatever it to took to keep global temperatures within the limits that scientists say we ought to do to avoid the worst of global warming. How much would that cost?
STERN: Over the next two or three decades it might cost 1 or 2 percent of world GDP, that's like a one off a 1 or 2 percent increase in a cost index. But in thinking of that we also have to think of not only the reduction in risks associated with global warming, but we're going to spark off a process of growth and change, which will be as exciting and productive and creative probably more so than the railways and electricity in earlier periods of economic history.
Ryssdal: To get it in dollar terms, 1 or 2 percent of global gross domestic product is what? A trillion dollars maybe?
STERN: In the U.S. it would be roughly that. But as I said, this is investment, and investment that will yield huge job and investment opportunities.
Ryssdal: Let's say we choose not to make that investment, though, and see what happens with climate change. What would the cost of adaption be?
STERN: It could be anything from 5 to 20 percent of GDP averaged over a long period of time. But some of these things will be almost impossible to adapt to. The basic science suggests that sometime at the beginning of next century with unmanaged climate change, we'd be 5 degrees centigrade, 9 degrees farenheit, above the middle of the 19th century. The world has not been there for 30 million years. We humans have been around for 200,00. It's dramatic, and it's not easy to put that in dollars and cents. But it would far outweigh these relevantly minor 1 or 2 percent of GDPs in heading off climate change.
Ryssdal: How do you explain then the gap between the economic and scientific evidence that you and others have provided, and the lack of political will to spend that 1 or 2 percent of GDP right now.
STERN: I think that the political will around the world has changed quite dramatically in the last two or three years. But it has to go further and faster.
Ryssdal: What is government's role in spearheading some of these innovations, in getting them started?
STERN: Well, the investments that matter are spurred by incentives. And the market fails because it doesn't face people with the costs of the greenhouse gases they emit. We want markets to work well. So a carbon tax, or a cap and trade scheme, as being discussed in the U.S., fix the market which would otherwise fail. They give the incentives. And it's going to be governments that fix that market failure and make markets work better. It's government that will set regulatory standards, for motor vehicles and so on. So the investments which will be made by ordinary people and firms will be shaped by the government's policy, and it's vital that private industry investors get together with government and work out what the best kind of incentive structures are going to be to make those investments which are coming through, come through still faster.
Ryssdal: Nicholas Stern is a professor at the London School of Economics. He's also the author of a landmark 2006 British study on the economics of climate change. It's called the "Stern Review." Mr. Stern, thanks so much for your time.
STERN: A pleasure being with you. Thank you.
Dear Clinton M:
I note in your post lots of outrage, slander, and nonsense, but not one solid number, reference, or well-reasoned argument--just a whole lotta vitriol, which is pretty useless.
I would suggest you take time to read Solomon's book. Believe it or not, the author comes from a renewable energy background, and is not in anyone's pocket. What he found, and what you will also if you take the time to dig into the details, is that the conclusions drawn by the noisiest anti-carbon folks are unsupported by any real science.
I'm not making this up. Read the book. If you lack the technical background to understand the climatology and statistics, find a friend who does. I know it's a disappointment to you, but the anthropogenic global warming story is unsupported bunk, according to leaders in the sciences who are not bed mates with any energy company.
When you want too much to see a secret conspiracy or a looming disaster, it renders you incapable of seeing the real truth.
have a nice day,
Paul
Paul Brunemeier - "GREEN Kool-Aid" ?? Please, don't insult yourself by substituting accepted knowledge with doubtful sources and catchy clichés taken straight out of the oil and coal sponsored FUD playbook.
"Stern has made a career of telling the world that the sky is falling" ??? OH please, that is more absurd than Mr. Solomon's book. You site one or two statistics in a field where Professor Stern has cited thousands, if not 10s of thousands, don't provide credible sources, and in conclusion diss his entire career?
If I used your "logic" I would conclude you received your education from 5 cereal box tops, clipped and mailed to P.O. Box "No-Logic", Silcone Implant, CA.
The deniers have taken their place in the absurd palace of corporate-backed Fear-mongers, uncertainty-creators, and doubt-casters. I can also point out comments by flat-earthers who hold a degree in one area or another too Paul, but that doesn't make the Earth a flat place.
The tiny percentage of discredited deniers who are backed by the billions of Corporate Carbon Cash cannot drown out the peer-reviewed 95% of the rest of the educated world.
So please, you can be the needle in the haystack if you want, but your hollow cry rings hollow and it's pathetic when we consider how the deniers substitute the health of our nation and this world simply to protect their greedy interests.
MPR,
stay away from the GREEN Kool-Aid! Today you presented a conversation with Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the alarmist Stern Report.
Stern has made a career of telling the world that the sky is falling, but when real experts examine his analysis, it is his thesis that collapses instead. Stern draws on the data of recognized expert professor Richard Tol, who is openly critical of Stern's results. As Tol points out, in one case he cites a carbon cost factor from Tol's study but mysteriously doubles it to make the case appear worse; in another, he **triple** counts risk factors in order to support absurd proclamations on the costs and magnitude of global warming.
Stern has earned a place in the self promoter's hall of shame, right next to professor Michael Mann, who gave the world mistaken analysis and bad data "proving" the case for anthropogenic global warming. Credible scientists and experts support neither of these frauds.
For a careful, credible analysis of the real nature of global warming and the error of the current craze, please see "The Deniers," by Lawrence Solomon.
