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News:
- The article discusses about the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate change along with the work of Nobel awardees in economics on sustainable growth and its influence on the upcoming Katowice
Important Facts:
- Warnings on global temperature rise:
- The IPCC has warned that world temperatures are set to increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels in just 12 years from 2018.
- According to the report, unless the world acts readily to reduce emissions and curtail temperature raises, (faster than the voluntary targets or ‘nationally determined contributions’ agreed by 195 countries) it could cross an irreversible tipping point after which the effects of global warming could become exceedingly serious.
- The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has observed that the economic cost of climate-related disasters touched $2.25 trillion over the last two decades, a 250 percent rise over the previous 20 years.
- Interplay between economics and climate change: Nobel prize winners 2018 in economic sciences even have taken on climate change deniers such as Donald Trump with their emphasis on long-term sustained and sustainable economic growth.
- William D. Nordhaus contributed “for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis”. He became the first person to create an integrated assessment model, a quantitative model that describes the global interplay between the economy and the climate. Nordhaus’ model is used to examine the consequences of climate policy interventions, for example carbon taxes.
- Paul M. Romer demonstrated how knowledge can function as a driver of long-term economic growth by his “endogenous growth theory” which explains how ideas are different to other goods and require specific conditions to thrive in a market. Romer’s theory has generated vast amounts of new research into the regulations and policies that encourage new ideas and long-term prosperity.
- Their contributions are meant to provide “fundamental insights into the causes and consequences of technological innovation and climate change”.
- However, critics argue that their work does not take on the resource-driven growth process per se, the way the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth thesis as well as EF Schumacher’s seminal Small is Beautiful did in the early ’70s.
- The Katowice Climate Change Conference 2018:
- The Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland will include the 24th session of Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the UNFCCC.
- It is expected to finalize the rules for implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change under the Paris Agreement work programme (PAWP).
- Issues in the Katowice conference:
- Funding: The role of technological innovation in reducing emissions and the need to transfer these to developing countries and need generous infusions from rich countries. At the Poland meet, the US and Canada are likely to come under pressure for persisting with the exploitation of fossil-fuel-based resources.
- Way Forward in India’s case:
- Emission reductions depend hugely on the shift to renewables. India’s non-fossil-based power capacity is expected to touch 40 percent (but that includes hydel, which destroys carbon sinks) by the end of 2018.
- While the onus must lie on the rich countries to cut energy use, but energy tariff reforms should be put in place owing to India’s low per capita energy consumption (and emission) giving rise to inequalities in energy access.
- Another area that deserves policy attention is the role of green buildings in reducing energy consumption. In sum, it can no longer be business as usual.
Note
- Green building is the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction.
- A green building makes efficient use of land, materials, energy, and water, generates minimal or no waste.
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