About: climate economics Archives

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.

Funding shortages and recession fears should not be used as excuses for shying away from tackling climate change, while governments have a key role to play by setting the right carbon price on polluters, according to a new report by Deutsche Bank.

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.

EU heads of state and government will convene in Brussels tomorrow (15 October) to agree on the bloc's energy and climate agenda in the midst of a worsening economic crisis that is exacerbating industry concerns over CO2 abatement costs and foreign competition.

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. 

Differing views on the need for intermediate emissions reduction targets emerged over the weekend (24-26 May) between G8 environment ministers, who pledged to work on a deal to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 during an upcoming summit in July.

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).

Competitiveness challenges associated with the shift towards a low-carbon economy are real but manageable, according to environment ministers from the 30 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), who debated the issue in Paris this week (28-29 April).

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.

There are clear similarities between climate change adaptation and economic behaviour and thus the issue can be dealt with within the framework of economic analysis, argues a policy brief by Asbjørn Aaheim and Marianne Aasen for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

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.

EU economics and finance ministers want to ensure that the bloc's climate change policies do not undermine public finances and job growth. The EU's carbon market and other 'market-based instruments' are the preferred option for cutting the bloc's carbon emissions, according to the ministers' draft conclusions, to be adopted on 12 February.  

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. 

The climate-change debate has shifted, claim Eileen Claussen and Judith Greenwald of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in a July 2007 article for the Miami Herald.

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.

Keeping global warming under control will cost the global economy far less than coping with the damage it will cause, according to the conclusions of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change.

Avoiding damage worth trillions of dollars and new business opportunities for the UK - these are the latest claims made in reports on the positive effects of battling global warming.