Lord Nicholas Stern on the threat of climate change

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Lord Nicholas Stern on the threat of climate change

07 May 2009

Professor Lord Nicholas Stern speaks of the growing threat of climate change. Noting how predictions for climate change are becoming more and more ominous, Lord Stern makes clear the urgency of taking swift action in this area, stressing the global social and economic costs of failing to do so. He does this by running through the estimated costs for reducing emissions to a level that gives a relative chance of limiting the effects of climate change, showing that the estimated cost of this process would be relatively cheap - around 2% of global GDP for a few decades. This would require a 50% reduction in global emissions and 80% emissions reductions by rich countries by 2050.

To achieve this, he argues, will require a global coalition of unprecedented scale, and one that gives equal - if not more - 'say' to developing nations. Lord Stern also argues that combatting climate change can be seen as a positive thing, and that green technologies could create a period of Schumperterian growth that would lift us out of the global economic recession - a similar economic swell to those caused by the railways and electricity in the 19th century, and IT in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This economic growth would be equally beneficial to developing countries, who are at the forefront of developing green technologies, and who might stand to benefit from carbon trading.

But most of all, Stern stresses, we have to be positive about our chances of beating climate change - a pessimistic outlook will certainly lead to failure.

This video was kindly provided by The 21st Century School