WHY ARE WE WAITING?

Reviewed 5/01/2022

Why Are We Waiting?, by Nicholas Stern

WHY ARE WE WAITING? The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate Change Nicholas Stern Richard Layard, M.P. (Fwd.) Cambridge: The MIT Press, April 2015				Rating: 5.0 High
ISBN-13 978-0-262-02918-6
ISBN-10 0-262-02918-9	406pp.	HC/GSI	$27.95

In 2005, Britain's House of Lords commissioned an economic analysis of the costs of climate change. That analysis, known as The Stern Review, appeared the following year. Much has transpired since The Stern Review became the most authoritative documentation showing that the costs of adapting to climate change far exceed those of a mixture of adaptation and mitigation: the Great Recession knocked the stuffing out of the world's economy; Barack Obama was elected president in the U.S.; "Climategate" purported to debunk the scientific basis of climate change; and COP15 in Copenhagen disappointed all those who understood that Climategate was a trumped-up scandal.1

Lord Stern's book A Blueprint for a Safer Planet (titled The Global Deal here in the U.S.) was intended to convey the essentials of his economic analysis to a broader public.2 It was published in April 2009, in the midst of these events. It was intended to convey a truth — that the mitigation of climate change goes hand in hand with the eradication of poverty, rather than being a major factor in the exacerbation of poverty. That book also reminds us that there are many things easy to do that will make a start on mitigation, and that while making significant reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions will impose costs, doing nothing will impose far greater costs.

Now, in Why Are We Waiting?, Lord Stern lays out the progress that has been made, mostly at local and regional levels.

The intervening six years have brought much experience and technological advances, as described in this book. And in some respects, international discussion is more mature, with some sharing of assessments and principles for international action. The change during this time in the policies and plans of /china, by far the world's largest emitter, is of profound importance. But many disagreements remain, and there is a long way to go before agreement can be established. Of course, time does not stand still while international discussions take place, and there has been strong progress in a number of countries in addition to China. That progress would be much faster, however, in an international agreement were in place.

I hope that this book, alongside the New Climate Economy Report, makes a contribution to the shared understanding of issues and principles which is a vital part of international agreements. The discussion must include analysis of both the risks of taking little or no action and the potential for finding different and more sustainable paths. And it must include analysis of and principles for equitable and cooperative ways forward, or in the language of the Cancun agreement in December 2010, 'equitable access to sustainable development.'

– Pages xv-xvi

Six years on, however, the same obstructions remain in place, and the pace of progress in many places remains glacial even while accelerating changes in climate (including the melting of glaciers) signal the growing urgency of the need for action.

The people of the world are gambling for colossal stakes. Two centuries of scientific enquiry, founded in basic physics and powerful evidence, indicate that the risks from a changing climate over the next hundred years and beyond are immense. There is a strong possibility that the relationship between humans and their environment would be so fundamentally changed that hundreds of millions of people, perhaps billions, would have to move. History tells us that this carries serious risks of severe and extended conflict. We are the first generation that through its neglect could destroy the relationship between humans and the planet, and perhaps the last generation that can prevent dangerous climate change.

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We can now see that growth, development, mitigation, and adaptation go hand in hand, and that the portrayal of climate action as being in inexorable conflict with growth, poverty reduction, and radical improvements in human well-being is false and diversionary. Indeed, an attempt at high-carbon growth will self-destruct through the hostile physical environment it will create. A committed and measured low-carbon transition would likely trigger an exciting new wave of global investment, innovation, and prosperity.

– Page xxvii

Lord Stern reminds us that the danger is real and continues to grow — and also that solutions are within our reach, if we will only grasp them. These three paragraphs of his should improve our understanding.

Such an understanding could radically reduce the risk of "free-riding," a notion much beloved of game theorists (of the more simple kind) and by those who seek an excuse to do very little. As discussed in chapters 7 and 8, relative to the gloomy, free-riding view of the world, it is remarkable how many countries are willing to act without detailed international agreement; because they see the dangers, they believe it is responsible behavior to contribute to a response, and they see the attraction of an alternative path. The willingness to act is strengthened if there is an understanding of the measures that others are taking—"better knowledge of what others are doing and discussing is a key factor in individual and mutual action.

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We are at a remarkable point in history. We have a chance to combine the profound structural changes we are seeing in the world economy end extraordinary technological change on the one hand with a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy on the other. We can simultaneously find a much more attractive way to grow and develop, overcome poverty and radically reduce the grave risks of climate change. We must decide and act or the opportunity will be lost. We must act now.