Why Are We Waiting? by Nicholas Stern

Author:Nicholas Stern [Stern, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780262029186
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2015-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Part III

Action around the World: Progress, Collaboration, Equity

7

Developments in Climate Action around the World

Sound domestic climate policies in a country can foster growth and change that would bring a wide range of benefits to that country, including but extending well beyond reductions in climate risk. The adoption of such policies is in turn fostered by an understanding of the relevant science, economics, and ethics, and of the many co-benefits of climate action, including learning and discovery, energy efficiency, energy security, cleaner air and water, and so on. These arguments were at the core of the ideas of part II of this book, and of the September 2014 report of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

The case for undertaking the domestic structural reforms and investments required for swift and deep emissions cuts, and which can also deliver better growth, is strengthened still further if countries cooperate with one another. Cooperative climate action does not merely occur between nations. Subnational authorities such as state, city, and local governments as well as firms, financial institutions, multilateral organizations, research institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and ordinary citizens, all have a powerful role to play in the transition to a low-carbon world. It is these international and global interactions, and cooperation more generally, that form the subject of the analysis in the third and final part of this book.

The central message from this analysis is that the international framework for climate action is evolving, in large part in a positive way, but must evolve much faster. That acceleration will depend on a deepening understanding but also on political processes. As I have emphasized throughout, the responses to climate change will involve dynamic learning, innovation, discovery, and growth in ways that cannot be accurately predicted today. Moreover, a low-carbon transition in the coming decades will coincide with, and must be linked with, responses to the wider set of structural changes and challenges facing our world, particularly the challenge of world poverty. The twin challenges of climate change and world poverty are the defining challenges of the twenty-first century. If we fail on one, we fail on the other. A failure to manage climate change is likely to create a physical environment so destructive as to undermine and reverse development. An attempt to manage climate change that obstructs the fight against poverty in the next two decades will fail and deserves to fail. We can and must tackle both challenges at the same time. If we manage the great structural transformations the world is experiencing in a strong and effective way, we shall make our response to these twin challenges much easier.

The structural transformations are remarkable in scope and speed. The balance of world economic activity continues to change rapidly, with the fast growth of many emerging-market and developing countries. Profound changes across cities, energy systems, and land use continue. Unless a framework for climate action both recognizes the twin challenges and embraces these structural changes, it is unlikely to succeed in supporting a transformation of the scale required.

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