IPCC chief: Benefits of tackling climate change will balance cost of action

Wednesday, 22 July 2009 12:11

The cost of tackling climate change will be paid for by benefits that would come from better energy security, employment and health, Rajendra Pachauri says ahead of major announcement on 2013 reports.
Measures needed to tackle global warming could save economies more money than they cost, the world's top climate change expert said today (20 July).

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Guardian: "The cost could undoubtedly be negative overall." This is because of the additional benefits that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could bring, beyond limiting temperature rises.

Until now, estimates of the price of preventing dangerous climate change have all indicated significant costs. The most authoritative study, the 2006 Stern report, concluded that 1% of global GDP would be required, and he has since said 2% is now more likely.

Pachauri's comments came ahead of a press announcement in New York about the IPCC's plans for its next series of reports in 2013. He said these would include a greater emphasis on the economics, as well as ethical and humanitarian concerns.

Funding for reducing and adapting to climate change in one of the most difficult issues in the negotiations towards a global deal at a UN summit in December in Copenhagen. But Pachauri argues that if the costs are negative, then "inertia and vested interests would be washed away. As the Americans say, it would be like dollar bills lying on the sidewalk."

The associated benefits Pachauri pointed to include better energy security, protecting consumers from oil price spikes, new employment in green industries, more productive agriculture and lower air pollution, cutting health costs. He said one good example was insulating draughty homes and installing better energy control systems. "This can yield very high rates of returns, with pay back in one year."
The idea of co-benefits is also central to the "green new deals" promoted by the UN Environment programme, Lord Stern's group and others.

(Source: the Guardian)