While the atmospheric effects of global climate change are hotly debated on what seems like an every day basis, there is another side to going green: it involves, well, more “green”-as in money, and lots of it! I stumbled across this article (copied and pasted below, available in its original format from the AP on August 5th detailing how a United Nations Panel on Climate Change hopes to address this issue.
Essentially, a British economist by the name of Nicholas Stern told the panel incentives will be needed to move nations into a greener way of doing business, ultimately leading to fewer carbon emissions. It is hoped that this will help to curb the upward trend of our temperatures globally. More specifically, it is hoped that poorer nations will benefit from such incentives, enabling them to adapt to climate change more efficiently.
As always, we should probably remind you that your CNYCentral weather team does not specialize in climate change research. Rather, we focus on short-term forecasting for your day to day life, something a bit less political in nature. With that being said, it is a very exciting time to watch emerging climate change science. It will be very interesting to see how this hotly-contested topic progresses over the course of the next few years.
Check out the full article below.
By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer Arthur Max, Associated Press Writer – Thu Aug 5, 12:22 pm ET
BONN, Germany – Carbon taxes, add-ons to international air fares and a levy on cross-border money movements are among ways being considered by a panel of the world's leading economists to raise a staggering $100 billion a year to fight climate change.
British economist Nicholas Stern told international climate negotiators Thursday that government regulation and public money also will be needed to create incentives for private investment in industries that emit fewer greenhouse gases.
In short, a new industrial revolution is needed to move the world away from fossil fuels to low carbon growth, he said.
"It will be extremely exciting, dynamic and productive," said Stern, one of 18 experts in public finance on an advisory panel appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
A climate summit held in Copenhagen in December was determined to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to climate change and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide trapping the sun's heat. But the 120 world leaders who met in the Danish capital offered no ideas on how to raise that sum — $1 trillion every decade — prompting Ban to appoint his high-level advisory group.
The Copenhagen summit also resolved to mobilize a three-year emergency fund of $30 billion starting this year. It was unclear how much has been raised and disbursed so far.
The advisory panel, which began working in March, will present its final report to Ban in October, a month before the next decisive climate conference convenes in Cancun, Mexico.
It will analyze a range of options, Stern said, and governments must decide which to chose, how much to raise from each source, and how to distribute the money.
Potential revenue sources include auctioning the right to pollute, taxes on carbon production, an international travel tax, and a tax on international financial transactions, as well as government grants and loans. Each could produce tens of billions of dollars a year, Stern said.
"No one single source will deliver $100 billion by itself. There is no silver bullet, no hole in one," he said.
Private capital also will be crucial, and governments must adopt policies reducing the risk to investors, he said.
The panel's recommendations will weigh the practicality, reliability, and political acceptability of each method, he said.
The advisory panel is chaired by the prime ministers of Norway and Ethiopia and the president of Guyana. Its members include French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, billionaire financier George Soros and public planners from China, India, Singapore and several international banks.
The governments of 194 countries are negotiating an agreement to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which called on industrial nations to reduce carbon emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Unlike Kyoto, the next deal would set emission goals for developing countries, especially rapidly growing economies like China and India, in exchange for help with financing and technology.
The negotiating session in Bonn ends Friday, and delegates will meet once more in China before the Cancun ministerial conference.
Related Links to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the U.S. DOT “Transportation and Climate Change Clearinghouse” .