Interesting differences of opinion about how serious a problem we’re facing…
Potted Bert Metz: To avoid dangerous climate change (a 2 degree increase in mean global temperature), we need to stabilise emissions by 2015 and get them back to current levels by 2040. Even if this is achieved, we’re still going to see very costly damage.
Potted Matthew Hulbert: Don’t expect a ‘seminal moment’ where climate change is definitively linked to conflict, but security is undoubtedly going to get worse. Climate change is an undoubted ‘threat multiplier’. Africa is most vulnerable, where the climate is already challenging, many people live close to the edge, and resilience is in short supply.
Potted Brahma Chellaney: Yeah it’s going to be bad, but the doomsayers are painting too black a picture. “Scaremongering makes it harder to come up with a realistic response.” The green bandwagon is already leading us down some dead ends. Biofuels, for instance, are a sop for the farm lobby, but will push food prices higher and harm the poor. Innovation and ingenuity are the answer.
All agree on the need to, in Jock Stirrup’s words, bring developing countries to the heart of the climate debate. But we haven’t yet heard much on the big question – what rights will developed and developing countries get to scarce emissions?
Will rich countries which “treat atmosphere as a municipal dump for their CO2 emissions” (Chellaney) get the bulk of emission permits? Or will the poor get a fair share as they try to develop?
Metz hedges. Rich countries face a 20-40% reduction in emissions by 2020, rising to 80-95% by 2050. Developing countries will see ‘substantial deviations from baseline’ – whatever that means.
Chellaney underlines the potential for disagreement. “Everyone talks about differentiated responsibility, but we still haven’t even begun the effort of what that will mean in practice.”
At the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, he notes, the G5 (India, China et al) resisted demands from the West that they should reduce energy intensity as they developed. The poor, they argued, should not be ‘forced to take on the burden’ of responding to climate change.
