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Climate Change and the Economy
Category: Global Regulation
Friday, April 11, 2008
The European Union held a two-day summit in March, ending with a pledge to pass legislation within 12 months that would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The wisdom of such extensive promises is questioned, however, in a recent Financial Times editorial.
According to the editorial, the consequences of launching a drastic emissions reduction program may be worse than the global warming such a program would try to combat. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) along with other IOs and NGOs, have been vocal about the toll that climate change will have on the economies and standards of living of developing countries. In a recent resolution, the United Nations Human Rights Council notes that “the environmental degradation, desertification and global climate change are exacerbating destitution and desperation, causing a negative impact on the realization of the right to food, in particular in developing countries.” Yet, as the editorial claims, “slowing down world economic growth, by shifting to much more expensive non-carbon sources of energy, would be massively costly.” The negative economic impact of such a change in industrialization, production, and even trade could “do far more damage to the world economy in general and to the developing countries in particular than could conceivably result from the projected resumption of global warming.”
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