CLEAN TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION ‘WILL COST $4 TRILLION A YEAR’
▶ Economist Nicholas Stern to call for ‘swift and strong’ worldwide action on climate change
The path to sustainable growth will cost the world at least $4 trillion a year, according to a British economist and proponent of clean technology.
Lord Nicholas Stern, who wrote a landmark 2006 report supporting the economic case for green policies, will return to the debate this week to say that climate action must be “swift and strong”.
In three lectures scheduled for the London School of Economics, Lord Stern is expected to call on governments to reject market fundamentalism and promote the benefits of clean technology instead.
Decisions “will dictate whether we lock-in high carbon emissions or transition to sustainable, resilient and inclusive development”, he will say.
At last year’s Cop28 summit in Dubai, countries made a series of pledges to cut carbon emissions while talks this year are expected to focus on how to finance them.
The world’s agreed aim is to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels without stunting economic growth.
“A big push on investment is central to this transformation, requiring at least $4 trillion a year globally by 2030. A new model of growth and development is in our hands but action must be swift and strong,” Lord Stern is expected to tell audiences in London. “Market fundamentalism has given way to recognising the state’s essential role in promoting sustainability and tackling inequality. Government intervention is critical to achieve sustainable growth and development in a world with many key market failures.”
Lord Stern, a former Treasury official and World Bank chief economist, wrote in his 2006 report that the benefits of going green “far outweigh the economic costs of not acting”.
The Stern Review helped shape the thinking of the Labour government under prime minister Tony Blair and chancellor Gordon Brown.
It passed the UK’s first climate change act in 2008.
However, Lord Stern has since criticised the UK’s climate policies and will warn of “irreversible climate impacts” unless the world moves to a “strong path of emissions reductions” leading to net-zero status. A low-cost means of removing carbon dioxide from the air will also be required, according to Lord Stern, or else the world might have to turn to radical geo-engineering that run “significant risks”.
“The success of this transformation rests also on innovative economic thinking and decisive political leadership,” he is expected to say.
“We have the economic understanding, technologies, and ingenuity to create this form of sustainable, resilient, and equitable development and to avoid climate catastrophe.
“But do we collectively have the political will, skills, and cohesion to deliver? The challenge is to transform what we ‘can do’ into what we ‘will do’.”
The success of this transformation rests also on innovative economic thinking and decisive political leadership
LORD NICHOLAS STERN Economist