Frank Ackerman: Stern Advice | Nature Reports
Economist Frank Ackerman reviews the new book by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, Blueprint for a Safer Planet. Here are a few excerpts.
One of the high points of the new book is Stern's response to some of his fiercest critics — economists who favour going slow on efforts to mitigate climate change. ... [A]s Stern points out, the choice of discount rates — and how much to value the future — is an ethical decision, not a technical one. ...
Stern proposes six essential elements that are jointly required for adoption of a global agreement. On the issue of goals, he says that developed countries must immediately adopt binding targets to reduce greenhouse gases to at least 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. Developing nations must take on binding targets no later than 2020 requiring that their emissions reach a peak and start to decline before 2030 — and sooner for the fastest-growing economies.In Stern's proposal, national or regional carbon trading schemes would be integrated into a global system. International funding would be provided on two fronts, firstly to allow developing nations to adapt to the early stages of climate damages and secondly to halt deforestation, one of the cheapest opportunities to reduce carbon emissions. Stern also calls for demonstration, sharing and further development of clean energy technologies. The costs of all of this are perhaps one to two per cent of world output for some years to come. ...
The United States has just completed an eight-year experiment studying whether local, private and non-profit initiatives can achieve significant emission reductions in the absence of national leadership; the answer turns out to be 'no'.
