The Climate Change Challenge
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Will we have an international consensus on the causes and consequences of global warming? Is the international community willing and ready to act decisively on the significant scale needed to respond adequately to the threat of climate change? Unfortunately, we are still very far from having a shared appreciation of the gravity of the problem.
With no economic consensus, appeals on an ethical or moral basis may gain limited support. And even as there is growing agreement on the threat, there is still insistence in some quarters on equal, as opposed to the Kyoto Protocol’s “common but differentiated”, responsibility to address it.
Inequalities, solutions, problems: The cruel inequalities in vulnerability to climate change and the stark contrast between those most vulnerable and those most responsible are well known. The major contributions to carbon emissions and global warming have been made over the last two centuries by the currently well-to-do industrial and post-industrial economies. But the biggest burdens and threats associated with climate change affect the most vulnerable of the world, mainly from the poorer developing economies. Addressing climate change requires the current generation to make sacrifices for future generations, but many of the present generation are hardly in a position to sacrifice much more.
Most options for addressing climate change under discussion will make carbon-use more costly. But raising the cost of carbon-use is likely to be regressive in impact—whether due to increased oil prices, increased costs of emission permits or carbon taxation. Ensuring greater equity should be central in developing and considering such options, in relation to both current and historical inequities. While there have been important proposals for progressive redistribution through taxation, there is still no international taxation regime anywhere on the horizon.
Intellectual property rights also pose problems for greater international cooperation, especially in relation to technological innovation for both mitigation and adaptation. The past two decades have seen greatly strengthened intellectual property rights (IPRs), making technological diffusion not only more difficult but also more costly.
To make things worse, investments in and availability of global public goods remain very limited. Already, there has been some regression on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and pharmaceuticals—the major inducement to bring developing countries back to the negotiating table after Seattle to resume the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks at Doha after 9/11. Reform to the current IPRs regime will need to be addressed to make possible the extensive use of technological solutions to address climate change.
Developmental solution: The international community increasingly recognizes the need to address climate change in relation to sustainable development. Sustained development to significantly reduce the huge existing global inequalities will require a massive investment programme in developing countries, including low-carbon energy. The costs of decarbonization are currently estimated at between 1 and 3 per cent of global output.
Almost four decades after the international community made the commitment to contribute 0.7 per cent of developed countries’ income as official development assistance to developing countries, only a handful of mainly Scandinavian countries have reached the target. Despite many pledges since then, most recently by the G8 at Gleneagles in 2005, the current level is only 0.3 per cent.
As of November 2007, estimates revealed an increase of $219.6 million over the approved budget due to a slippage of the schedule, the acceleration of rents for commercial office space and an increase of construction estimates. To date, 12 Member States have chosen to contribute to the CMP, with a one-time payment, and 180 have selected multi-year assessments over five years.
In sharp contrast, at the beginning of the cold war, General George Marshall’s programme contributed a much higher share of the much lower United States income to the reconstruction of Western Europe and then to North East Asia. Perhaps, more importantly, the United States deliberately chose not to take over these economies or even just their commanding heights, or even to dictate economic policies, i.e. ensuring “national ownership” and “policy space” for economic development.
Clearly, we need to make a comprehensive critical appraisal of existing institutions and mechanisms to assess how well they have worked or not worked, and begin to develop the reforms, institutions and policies needed to adequately address the challenges we face.
Feedbacks Accelerating Climate Change
There is growing scientific concern that climate change may be occurring even faster than the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report suggests, owing to imperfectly understood and previously underestimated feedbacks. If true, the need to slow global warming is all the more urgent. For example, as global warming melts sea ice, the open ocean water surface expands, especially during the Arctic summer, absorbing rather than reflecting solar rays. Open ocean water absorbs 80 per cent more solar radiation than ice. As the sun warms the ocean, more ice melts; as a consequence, global warming tends to be fastest nearer the poles, especially in the Arctic, where there are vast stretches of sea ice.
Thus far, the oceans have absorbed about half the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. But as the oceans warm up, they absorb less carbon dioxide (CO2), which dissolves less easily in warmer water, while the warming of ocean surface reduces the mixing between deep and surface waters that provide nutrients to the plankton that absorb CO2. As the oceans absorb less CO2, warming accelerates.
Global warming is also melting large amounts of permafrost in the far north and far south, as well as at high altitudes. As permafrost melts, organic matter begins to rot, releasing carbon dioxide and methane, which traps far more heat in the atmosphere than CO2. Warming is also affecting wetlands and forests worldwide, e.g. by desiccating peat bogs in equatorial and tropical zones. In some parts of the world, this has led to a proliferation of insects, as well as flora, that in turn threatens many existing ecological systems. Meanwhile, dry peat and dying forests are more vulnerable to fires, which in turn emit huge quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.
See Climate Change 2007, IPCC 4th Assessment Report, in particular the Working Group I Report: The Physical Science Basis. www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm
Biography
Jomo Kwame Sundaram is Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs. The article is adapted from his address at Tufts University on receiving the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.
