Tag: Climate economics

Executives from Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs spoke alongside former world leaders in Copenhagen yesterday (16 December) to promote private finance as a way of helping poor nations switch to low-carbon energy sources. EurActiv reports from the Danish capital.

With UN climate talks marred by tensions between poor and rich countries over carbon emissions reduction targets, some are now looking at the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a more solid foundation for a deal.

With nearly 200 nations having begun climate talks in Copenhagen, a genuine global regulatory framework is required to create a level playing field for businesses seeking to slash their emissions and move towards a low-carbon future, Giuseppe Montesano, head of environmental policy at Italian power company Enel, told EurActiv in an interview.

While EU leaders are expected to agree on immediate action to provide financial support for developing countries in Brussels today (11 December), in Copenhagen billionaire investor George Soros has unveiled a plan to provide up to 150 billion dollars for poor countries to access clean technologies.

Governments and academics are deeply divided over the economic costs and benefits of combating climate change and moving towards a low-carbon economy. The Stern Review, an influential enquiry into the issue, concluded in 2006 that fighting global warming would cost 1% of global GDP, while non-action could lead to a 20% loss of GDP in the long term. In comparison, research published in January 2009 shows that avoiding dangerous climate change could cost as little as 0.5% of global GDP.

With only 70-or so days to go before leaders meet to agree on a post-Kyoto climate deal in Copenhagen, there is a need to speed up negotiations and "make political choices,"  Danish Climate Change and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard told EurActiv in an interview.

Environment ministers from the 27-member bloc will meet on Monday (2 March) to fine-tune the EU's position ahead of international climate negotiations for the period after 2012. But views differ as to how the world's richest countries should contribute, with member states at odds over criteria such as GDP and population size.

2009 presents a diplomatic opportunity for governments of major economies to mobilise "unprecedented public-private collaboration" to address climate change as part of a wider economic growth agenda, participants in the World Economic Forum stated yesterday (29 January).

Frustrated by a lack of progress in talks over a new climate agreement taking place in Poznań, activists and delegates used the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to warn negotiators that legal action will increase unless governments take decisive steps to tackle global warming.

After a year of debate on what a post-Kyoto climate deal should look like, the United Nations has published a report setting out its ideas in the hope that it will facilitate an agreement during upcoming negotiations in Poznan, Poland, on 1-12 December.

Amid a worsening global economic slowdown, EU leaders say they will reach a deal on ambitious CO2 reduction laws before January 2009. But the rules could be significantly watered down in order to make concessions to reluctant member states.

MEPs will tomorrow (7 October) vote on key legislation designed to slash the EU's CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020. But the vote comes amidst a worsening economic crisis, with several member states indicating that they want to put the brakes on any rapid adoption of the measures. 

Concerns about anti-competitive behaviour and insufficient incentives for emerging economies, which frustrate sector-based greenhouse gas reduction schemes, can be overcome, says a new report by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

The world's leading emitters of greenhouse gases last week debated emissions reduction levels and the massive sums required to boost 'greener' development during a two-day meeting that produced no clear commitments or agreements.

While most company executives consider the risks and opportunities of climate change to be important, over a third of multinational firms "seldom or never" factor the issue into their overall strategy, according to the results of a recent survey by McKinsey.

Dealing with climate change will require significant changes in global investment patterns, including investment flows to the developing world of up to 1.7% of global GDP by 2030, according to a United Nations report that points to the potential of emissions trading as a promising source of funding. 

A fund and a five-year programme to help poor countries deal with floods and droughts look set to be adopted at a United Nations conference on global warming in Nairobi. But little progress is expected on new measures post-2012.