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Save climate, save
money
By Sanjay Suri
LONDON - This was a roundtable where
issues of energy and environment were brought
together, with the keynote address coming from a
finance minister.
But while different
issues came together, different positions on them
did not at the roundtable meeting on energy and
environment in London on Tuesday attended by
ministers from the 20 largest energy-using
countries. At issue was the future of energy.
France strongly backed use of nuclear energy as
the way to deliver relatively low-cost energy and
also contain climate change, said Jennifer Morgan,
World Wildlife Fund's International's director of
its climate change program, who attended the
meeting. The French were backed by the United
States and to some extent South Africa.
"But Germany said this was not a
solution," Morgan said. "They said they are
meeting their energy needs while phasing out
nuclear power." This division was along expected
lines. But the roundtable moved towards consensus
on several issues raised by Britain's Chancellor
of the Exchequer (finance minister) Gordon Brown,
such as a need to cut energy use, and on the
urgency of steps needed to contain climate change.
There was considerable agreement also on the
recognition that "economic growth and climate
change solutions can go hand in hand," Morgan
said.
Financial decisions need to be taken
to contain climate change, and that in turn will
bring financial advantages, Brown said. "Climate
change is an issue for finance and economic
ministries as much as for energy and environmental
ones," Brown told the gathering. "Across a range
of environmental issues - from soil erosion to
depletion of marine stocks, from water scarcity to
air pollution - it's clear now that these problems
in themselves threaten future economic activity
and growth."
The Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, he pointed out, had suggested
that the global economic costs associated with an
increase in average global temperature of 2.5
degrees centigrade could add up to between 1.5 and
2% of global gross domestic product (GDP) a year.
"As these costs unfold, an unstable climate could
lead to instability in some societies and
economies," Brown said. "And as economic
instability increases risk and undermines
investment, climate change will come to threaten
our economic development and growth."
Brown acknowledged where the fault
primarily lay, and who is paying the price. "It is
a problem caused by the industrialized countries,
whose effects will disproportionately fall on
developing countries," he said. "It is now clear
that the largest impacts of climate change will
occur in the great landmasses of Africa, Asia and
Latin America. Indeed many are already occurring,
from reduced rainfall in the Sahel (around the
Sahara desert) to floods in Bangladesh."
The European Union, Brown saidm accounts
for about 15% of carbon emissions; the Group of
Eight (G8) as a whole about 50%. "So the action of
the richest countries can make a huge difference,"
he said. There was no agreement, however, over
their responsibility to do so. The US remains an
eminent exception to the Kyoto Protocol, which
binds signatories to reduce emissions that cause
global warming, leading to climate change.
But again, while stark and fundamental
differences remained, the roundtable brought
common concerns to the fore, Morgan said. "There
were three main challenges the meeting addressed -
energy security, energy poverty, and climate
security," she said. The World Wildlife Fund has
pointed out that greenhouse gas emissions can be
reduced by 60-70% through energy-efficiency
measures. WWF, an unusual non-governmental
organization participant at a meeting like this,
stressed the need to go for renewable energy
options and energy efficiency solutions because
these are doable now.
''We want ministers
to decide on a common vision on how to tackle
climate change,'' Morgan said in a statement by
WWF. ''This generation of politicians is the last
generation who have it in their power to secure
the future of our planet, to safeguard the health
and livelihoods of millions of people and the
habitats that sustain their lives. History will
not forgive them if they fail to act."
(Inter Press
Service) |
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