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3 - Benefits and Costs of the Climate Change Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda
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- By Isabel Galiana, Lecturer, Department of Economics, McGill School of Environment, Montreal, Canada
- Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
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- Book:
- Prioritizing Development
- Published online:
- 30 May 2018
- Print publication:
- 07 June 2018, pp 54-63
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Summary
Introduction
It has been argued that climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity and yet is not explicitly targeted in the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but falls rather under Goal 7's (Ensure Environmental Sustainability) target 1, “Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources,” and less directly through Goal 8: “Global partnership for development.” Since their implementation in 2000, the MDGs have been shown to be quite successful in mobilizing support for health, hunger, and education. The subprioritization of climate change recognizes an implicit conflict between development, with the energy use (and emissions) it entails, and climate policy. Climate changemitigation in emerging and developing countries could be harmful from a development perspective if it slows economic growth by requiring more costly, low-carbon energy sources (Jakob and Steckel, 2013).
This chapter discusses and evaluates common and innovative global climate policy targets and metrics within a benefit-cost framework appropriate for use as post-2015 goals. Moreover, it highlights the potential for the UN post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals to acknowledge current technological limitations and developmental objectives facing policy makers and thus identify policies that are regionally acceptable, appropriate, and most important, effective in slowing global warming.
International Climate Cooperation
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created over a quarter century ago toassess the risks associated with anthropogenic climate change. In 1992 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was created to help establish enforceable treaties to “avoid dangerous climate change” through yearly Conferences of the Parties (COPs). The past 26 years of climate negotiations have shown that establishing such an agreement is a highly challenging task. In 1996 the goal of limiting climate change to a 2_C rise in average global temperature came on the scene and has become a key focus of the international climate debate. Despite much media attention and repeated negotiations within the UNFCCC framework, if measured by performance, global climate policy has failed. Since 1990 the globe has witnessed a steady rise in emissions, only halted by the global recession, with carbon dioxide emissions having increased by more than 46 percent.
Chapter 3 - Benefits and Costs of the Climate Change Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda
- Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
-
- Book:
- Prioritizing Development
- Published online:
- 30 May 2018
- Print publication:
- 07 June 2018, pp 54-66
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Summary
The results of this paper suggest a reconsideration of traditional climate policy that was designed to limit the level of total emissions per year and/or atmospheric concentrations. The traditional emission target approach has faced political resistance due to excessive costs associated with current technological limitations to the integration of low-carbon energy. Moreover, it often conflicts with the continued pursuit of economic growth and development. Despite various emission reduction agreements, globally there has been a steady rise in annual emissions and there is a vital need to pursue policies that address the drivers of emissions and the inevitable effects of rising emissions through adaptation.
7 - Benefits and Costs of the Energy Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda
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- By Isabel Galiana, Lecturer, Department of Economics, McGill School of Environment, Montreal, Canada
- Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
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- Book:
- Prioritizing Development
- Published online:
- 30 May 2018
- Print publication:
- 07 June 2018, pp 143-167
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Summary
Introduction
The global energy system is undergoing a rapid and significant transformation both from demand and supply perspectives. The former is due in large part to the growth and rapid urbanization of emerging economies, both of which are extremely energy intensive. The latter is due primarily to the “shale gas revolution,” the disaster at Fukushima, and the push for renewables. Governments are defining policies regulating all aspects of energy systems, including extraction, transportation, distribution, accessibility, fuel mix, transmission, and so on.
The World Energy Council's definition of energy sustainability is based on three core dimensions – energy security, social/economic equity, and environmental sustainability. Policy objectives should strive to address these three partially conflicting dimensions.
Further confounding the complexity of establishing appropriate targets are the following facts: there are currently about 1.3 billion people without electricity and 2.6 billion people who rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating; energy demand is expected to double by 2050; and there is a strong international desire to halve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate global warming. Energy planning must also be linked to goals and priorities in other sectors of the economy.
Regional differences abound, with regions least able to finance an energy shift most in need of one. Energy poverty in Africa in particular is a priority as less than 30 percent of the population has access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. In Asia 700 million people still have no access to electricity, and almost 2 billion people still burn wood, dung, and crop waste to cook and to heat their homes (Asian Development Bank, 2014). Lack of access to modern forms of energy results in the use of more-polluting and-less sustainable fuels, including biomass.
In this chapter we examine six potential targets for a post-2015 development agenda.
The zero target of increasing access to modern forms of energy to 100 percent of the population a. Universal provision of electrification b. Universal provision of modern cooking facilities
Doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement Globally
Doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
Chapter 7 - Benefits and Costs of the Energy Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda
- Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
-
- Book:
- Prioritizing Development
- Published online:
- 30 May 2018
- Print publication:
- 07 June 2018, pp 143-170
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
The global energy system is undergoing a rapid and significant transformation both from a demand and supply perspective. The former is due in large part to the growth and rapid urbanization of emerging economies, both of which are extremely energy intensive. The latter is due primarily to the ‘shale gas revolution’, the disaster at Fukushima and the push for renewables. The World Energy Council’s definition of energy sustainability is based on three core dimensions - energy security , social/economic equity, and environmental sustainability. Policy objectives should strive to address these three partially conflicting dimensions. Energy is essential to development and as such any target that stimulates greater energy access will yield positive benefit cost ratios. Moreover, if inequality is considered, energy access becomes the most important target. It is unfortunate that current technologies require a trade-off between sustainability and full energy access. Until low-carbon energy sources solve the issues of intermittency and storage, energy access will be shaped primarily by fossil fuels. The benefits of appropriately pricing energy, in particular fossil energy, through subsidy and taxation reform will be all the more important until alternative low-carbon energies can be reliably delivered.
7 - Technology-Led Climate Policy
- Edited by Bjørn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
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- Book:
- Smart Solutions to Climate Change
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
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- 09 September 2010, pp 292-359
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Summary
Introduction
Evidence mounts that humankind is changing the Earth's energy balance. The change in energy balance is attributable to the build-up in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that partially trap outgoing long-wave radiation – that is, radiation given off by the Earth as a result of absorbing solar (short-wave) radiation. There is still some debate as to how much of the change in energy balance has shown up to date in the form of changes in climate-related variables such as global average temperature and precipitation–evaporation patterns. But there is overwhelming evidence that some GHG-induced change has occurred, as distinct from changes attributable to natural phenomena (solar or volcanic) or factors affecting long-term variability in the earth's climate (Solomon et al. 2007). We also know that at least some (perhaps half) of the imbalance is temporarily hidden – stored in the oceans (Hansen and Nazarenko 2005). Almost certainly as the twenty-first century progresses the climatological evidence of human-induced change will mount – and so will the impacts on the environment and vulnerable aspects of the economy and society.
There are ongoing attempts to frame a climate policy to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Unless there is an epiphany in climate policy thinking, the emphasis will be on how much to do in the next period, rather than how to do it.