Question

Do you guys believe climate and economy go against each other?

need a report 1000 words based on this question, please !!

Answer 1

Introduction:

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” – Excerpt from the speech by Climate activist Greta Thunberg at the U.N.'s Climate Action Summit last year addressing the world leaders.

For too long, vested interests have touted the false story that economic growth and tackling climate change are mismatched. In fact, failing to tackle global heating is a sure-fire recipe for economic disaster. A recent study by Global Commission on the Economy and Climate shows that shifting to a low-carbon economy could create 65 million new jobs worldwide by 2030 and boost growth by $26 trillion dollars. Under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, the world agreed to cut emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most prevalent greenhouse gas, enough to keep the rise in global temperatures by 2050 to under 2°C, and preferably close to 1.5°C, compared with the pre-industrial era.

However, coal-fired power stations are still being built, and plans to drill for oil and gas are still on the table, even though non-carbon energy sources are now competitive. These are decisions by governments and businesses, and they follow the orthodoxy expressed by the large business houses and corporate functionaries.

Many Economists describe how the market failed to put a price on pollution, classifying it as external to the production process. That means the cost of pollution is borne to varying degrees by everyone but the polluter. It also puts no value on the things the pollution destroys but people need, like fresh air, clean water, safe food, pristine nature — now called “the commons.”

Can we measure how climate change hampers growth?

In a landmark report for the British government in 2006, Nicholas Stern enumerated the impact of global warming on the global economy. He estimated that the world needed to invest 2% of total economic output a year to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

But the world economy would lose anything from 5% to 20% of gross domestic product every year, forever, if no action were taken on climate change.

In May last year, two Stanford professors published a study that found the harshest economic impacts of climate change are occurring in hotter, poorer countries.

Now that the impact of climate change is being felt in all four corners of the globe, from melting ice sheets and permafrost to floods, droughts, fires and hurricanes, we can expect there to be increasing evidence of the rising costs of inaction.

Is the GDP calculated correctly?

Why do governments, business and finance still see climate action as a cost, not a benefit — and a lesser rather than greater cost despite all the facts and figures mentioned in this article above?

One reason is the way economic output is measured. Some economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, have long criticized the way GDP figures are compiled. Economic growth is the difference in GDP between given periods of time. These numbers do not reflect the crises we face, he wrote in The Guardian newspaper in November.

“If our economy seems to be growing but that growth is not sustainable because we are destroying the environment and using up scarce natural resources, our statistics should warn us,” he wrote.

“Getting the measure right — or at least a lot better — is crucially important, especially in our metrics- and performance-oriented society. If we measure the wrong thing, we will do the wrong thing. If our measures tell us everything is fine when it really isn’t, we will be complacent.”

‘Use it or lose it’ moment

In 2014, the flagship report of the Global Commission on Economy and Climate conclusively showed that higher quality growth can be combined with strong climate action.

1) The evidence today of the potential economic benefits are even greater than before; and the downside risks of inaction on climate change are even more stark.

2) Leading companies and investors are already getting behind this new approach, creating a new competitive race. So too are ambitious policy-makers.

3) The decisions we take over the next 2-3 years are crucial because of the urgency of a changing climate and the unique window of unprecedented structural changes already underway. The world is expected to invest about US$90 trillion on infrastructure in the period up to 2030, more than the entire current stock today. Much of this investment will be programmed in the next few years.

This is our ‘use it or lose it’ moment. Investing the US$90 trillion to build the right infrastructure now will deliver a new era of economic growth. Investing it wisely will help drive innovation, deliver public health benefits, create a host of new jobs and go a long way to tackling the risks of runaway climate change. Getting it wrong, on the other hand, will lock us into a high-polluting, low productivity, and deeply unequal future.

Conclusion:

Seizing the economic benefits of low-carbon and resilient growth will only be possible if we act boldly over the next 2-3 years.

We have now run out of time for incremental steps, generic proposals, or statements of broad principle. To capture the net economic benefits of US$26 trillion through to 2030 and shift the world economy onto a more stable climate pathway, the Global Commission calls upon economic decision-makers in the public and private sectors to take the following actions immediately:

1) First, governments should put a price on carbon and move toward mandatory climate risk disclosure for major investors and companies.

2) Second, all economies should place much greater emphasis on investing in sustainable infrastructure as a central driver of the new growth approach.

3) Third, the full power of the private sector and innovation needs to be harnessed.

4) Fourth, a people-centred approach is needed to ensure lasting, equitable growth and a just transition

We can eliminate extreme poverty, prevent dangerous climate change, and improve the lives and livelihoods of millions. But only if we set out to do so decisively now. This is not just about avoiding a future we do not want. It is about creating the future that we do want.

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