Risks of global warming greater than financial crisis
Reuters is reporting on a recent speech by Nicholas Stern, he of the famed (in climate change circles anyway) Stern Review. Stern was quite explicit, saying the Risks of global warming greater than financial crisis.
“The risk consequences of ignoring climate change will be very much bigger than the consequences of ignoring risks in the financial system,” said Nicholas Stern, a former British Treasury economist, who released a seminal report in 2006 that said inaction on emissions blamed for global warming could cause economic pain equal to the Great Depression.
“That’s a very important lesson, tackle risk early,” Stern told a climate and carbon conference in Hong Kong.
As countries around the world move from deploying monetary and financial stabilisation measures, to boosting fiscal spending to mend real economies, Stern said the opportunity was there to bring about a new, greener, carbon-reducing world order.
“The lesson that we can draw out from this recession, is that you can boost demand in the best way possible by focusing on low carbon growth in future,” Stern said, including greater public spending on mass public transport, energy and green technologies.
Instead of pouring money into the economy in the hope that a societal end-of-year consumption binge will see us all through these economic dark times, we, and by we I mean the Government who, in Australia has just seen fit to promise AU$10 billion to encourage old people buy plasma screen TVs, need to be pouring money into green infrastructure. Here’s some suggestions
- Solar energy for 500,000 homes
- Improved insulation for 500,000 homes
- Improved bike paths and other road enhancements for cyclists
- High speed rail links between Canberra and Sydney (please!)
I could go on but you get the idea. Spending on green infrastructure not only creates skilled jobs right here at home, it sets us on the path to energy independence, with low-cost power for all. And we’d cut our greenhouse emissions by more than our paltry Kyoto targets, which actually allow Australia to increase its emissions by 8% over 1990 levels. Surely that’s a better use of our money than a whole load of grannies with new TVs. — DS
