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The economics of climate change: and the vacuum in global leadership.

Article Excerpt
The changing climate due to human behavior is the overwhelming challenge of our time. The scientific knowledge is clearer than ever: if we do not take efficient and lasting actions to curb today's largely uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions into a future situation where low or close to zero emissions are the norm, mankind will be headed for a future of catastrophic change. Human life as we know it will be impossible in many places around the world. The most immediate effects will be a water shortage and harsher weather conditions, but on many fronts climate change will be a threat to sustainable welfare, global stability, and growth. At present, though, the trends are still going in the wrong direction. Previous worst-case scenarios are being revised to describe even more pessimistic alternatives. Things are getting worse. How can this be?

The breakdown of societies due to human destruction of the environment is not unparalleled in history, and has been described and analysed by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse. Easter Island, the Mayan Society on the Yucatan peninsula, the Viking settlement on Greenland--many individuals living in those societies must have noticed the negative trends. Many of them also recognized the cause, but as collectives they were unable to change direction and achieve sustainable development. Cultural issues, local power struggles, inability to learn new skills, attitudes towards the question of responsibility--all probably played important roles. The political capacity needed to avoid an obvious disastrous long-term development was lacking, and actors in those societies did not support each other to the extent needed to facilitate effective action.

The deal forming the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was struck in Rio 1992 and it went into force on March 21, 1994. As of today almost all nations in the world, 192 countries, have ratified this treaty. All agreed on the need to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with the goal of preventing 'dangerous interference' in the climate system. The Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997, establishing for some countries the first binding national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Though flawed, these were landmark agreements. But more than a decade later, they have not...

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