A huge green investment drive worth at least $4 trillion a year is needed to put the world on a sustainable growth path, says one of Britain's leading thinkers on climate change.
Sir Nicholas Stern, author of a landmark 2006 report setting out the economic basis for environmental policy, will rejoin the debate this week, warning that action must be “swift and strong”.
In three lectures at the London School of Economics, he is expected to call on governments to reject “market fundamentalism” and use its power to promote clean technology.
Decisions over the next few years “will determine whether we curb high carbon emissions or move towards sustainable, resilient and inclusive development,” he said.
At the COP28 talks held in the UAE last year, countries made a series of pledges to reduce carbon emissions. Climate change talks in 2024 are expected to focus on how to finance them.
The globally agreed goal is to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-1900 levels, without putting a brake on economic development.
“A significant boost in investment is at the heart of this transformation, which will require at least $4 trillion a year globally by 2030. A new model of growth and development is in our hands, but action will take It has to be fast and strong,” Lord Stern is expected to say. London.
“Market fundamentalism has given way to recognition of the important role of the state in promoting sustainability and tackling inequality. Government intervention is essential to achieve development.”
Lord Stern, a former Treasury official and chief economist at the World Bank, wrote in a 2006 report that the benefits of going green “far outweigh the economic costs of inaction.”
The Stern Review helped shape the thinking of the then Labor government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, which passed Britain's first climate change bill in 2008.
But he has since criticized the UK government's climate policy and is expected to warn of “irreversible climate impacts” unless the world goes on a “route path to strong emissions reductions” that will lead to net zero emissions.
The cost of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere must also be made cheaper, or the world must turn to radical geoengineering options that carry “significant ethical and environmental risks” Maybe, he says.
“The success of this transformation will also depend on innovative economic thinking and decisive political leadership. We need an economics that focuses on the dynamics of systemic, structural and technological change. ” he is expected to say.
“We have the economic understanding, technology and ingenuity to create this new form of sustainable, resilient and equitable development and avoid climate change.
“But do we collectively have the political will, skills and cohesion to make it happen? The challenge is to turn what we can into what we do. ”
Updated: March 12, 2024, 8:15 a.m.
