press conference on way forward in addressing climate change

The cost of strong and timely action in addressing the global causes and impacts of climate change far less than that of inaction or timid and delayed responses, Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics said at Headquarters today.

He was speaking at a press conference by panellists from the General Assembly’s two-day informal thematic debate on “Climate change as a global challenge”, which began this morning with a panel discussion on the science and impact of the phenomenon, and the adaptation imperative.  (See Press Release GA/10607.)  Other participants at the press conference were:  Jim Rogers, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Duke Energy, and Sunita Narain, Director of the Indian Centre for Science and Environment.

Stating that the risks of climate change could be reduced -- though not eliminated -- by an expenditure of 1 per cent of world gross domestic product per year, he proposed a nine-point plan, including a 50 per cent cut by 2050 in world greenhouse gas emissions, relative to 1990.  Rich countries should work towards a target of around 75 per cent cuts, as well as specific targets for 2020.

Strong world carbon markets should be developed and made much more simple and transparent, he said.  Investment in technology should increase and deforestation should be addressed energetically.  Strong investments were also needed in the science of climate change.  Adaptation and mitigation technologies must be developed and development assistance promises delivered.  Because of climate change, development would be more costly -- in the range of tens of billions per annum -- than previously understood. 

Ms. Narain said that, as climate change received the necessary attention, the discourse was becoming locked in the politics of the past.  If emissions were not controlled with the speed required, there would be dramatic changes in climate and the poor would suffer its worst impacts.  How to move ahead was the issue at hand.  The Kyoto Protocol had been too little too late, and drastic emission cuts were necessary.

She suggested that the rich world must reduce emissions far more drastically than they had done until now.  However, the emerging economies and the poor world must also cooperate in cutting emissions.   The South, which had not built its energy systems as yet, could try to find a “leap-frog” technology to make the transition towards a low carbon economy.  The challenge was to find ways to make necessary technologies available to the whole world.

Mr. Rogers said his company, Duke Energy, was the third largest consumer of coal, the fourth largest nuclear operator, and the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the United States.  The climate change question needed leadership not only from all Governments, but also from the private sector and non-governmental organizations around the world.

Underscoring the need to start that work immediately, he said one way to address the problem was “productivity gains” in the use of electricity, whereby energy efficiency products and services were delivered to consumers.  In parallel with that, significantly greater investments should be made in new technologies.  A vision without resources, however, was a hallucination.  Unless those resources were made available, the objectives would not be achieved.

In response to a question, Mr. Stern said global warming was only one step in the climate change process.  There was no disagreement among scientists about global warming, but a few odd hold-outs continued to maintain that the signs of global warming were part of natural cycles, but more than 90 per cent of scientists agreed with the scientific views put forward in this morning’s debate by Dr. John Holdren of Harvard University.

Responding to questions concerning immediate next steps to address climate change, Mr. Rogers said it made sense to invest in new technologies, first and foremost as an issue of national security.  The two greatest challenges facing the world today were the need to change the situation of the world’s poorest people and the need to reverse the accumulated damage already caused by technology.  “The two are intricately linked.”  The Darfur situation had arisen in large part because of drought and the movement of nomadic tribes in response to that shift.

In the United States, he continued, legislation on climate change was expected to be in place by 2010.  Companies, however, could not wait.  Initiatives were being undertaken, in which energy companies such as General Electric, Dupont and some 400 other major firms had formed into coalitions to advise the Government.  Duke Energy was retrofitting 29 energy supply units to address the realities of a carbon-constrained world.  The investment environment must also be changed to reflect reality.

Ms. Narain added that the unpredictability of rainfall levels was one consequence of climate change most harmful to women’s ability to care for themselves and their families.  The resultant necessary relocations must be addressed at the subregional, rather than the national, level.  The immediate next steps required concerted action at the political level where goals could be set.  Clean air mechanisms must then be revised or developed, even as steps were taken to avoid pollution.

Mr. Stern emphasized that the achievement of goals in the future implied an immediate action in the present.  To achieve the 20 per cent reduction in fuel emissions that the Europeans had set as a goal for 2020 meant they must implement steps “right now”.  Any sceptics who claimed that scientists could be wrong and there was no need for action should heed the common-sense conclusion that no harm could come from developing good technologies, while addressing a potential disaster.  Reversing the damage already done would cost the wealthy countries a mere 1 per cent of their gross domestic product, but the emphasis should be on countering deforestation, which was responsible for more global climate change than emissions.

Ms. Narain added that those technologies should be made available to help responsible development in poor countries, pointing out that as the emerging-market countries became wealthy, they did not have to repeat the errors that the present developed world had made.

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