Time for action

The latest report from the Nobel Prize-winning intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) underlines the need for immediate action, says Jacqueline McGlade

The report, the fourth in a series this year, pulls no punches. Climate change could result in catastrophic impacts. While the worst effects of climate change may not hit Europe for many years we must prepare now.

Climate change will have profound effects on everything from availability of natural resources, to how we travel around and build houses. We will not only lose biodiversity but also large parts of our territory, such as low-lying coastal areas and river basins as sea levels rise and the number of river floods increase. There will therefore be adaptation costs – building flood defences, improving sewerage systems, finding alternative water supplies, for example, even if there are also effective measures that do not cost much, like heat wave alert systems.

Then there are the mitigation costs – the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The IPCC and the Stern reports estimate that mitigation costs will be somewhere between 1 per cent and 3 per cent of global GDP per year if we take strong, early action. However, the total costs of mitigation and adaptation are lower than the cost of impacts without any actions.

This cost benefit approach, which is sensible at a global level, produces different results at the country level. The Stern report points out that the poorest countries will suffer earliest and most. The costs of adaptation due to increased flooding in a country like Bangladesh are expected to be much higher than in European countries. So the picture will be different from region to region in the world, from country to country within the regions, and even from individual to individual in the countries.

There is also the time dimension. Because of the complexity of the climate system and the long lead times, we need to invest now to reduce impacts decades or centuries into the future.

Combating climate change – and the range of other environmental problems we are facing – therefore requires a fundamental rethink about the way our society functions. Our consumption and production puts high pressures on the environment in Europe and the rest of the world. In particular we need action to address the three consumption areas that have been identified as having the highest environmental impacts over their lifecycle: housing, food and drink, and mobility.

Europe can use the concepts of sustainable consumption and production and a post-carbon economy as pathways to help meet the needs of Europe’s citizens without destroying the environment or running into dead-ends.

What is now needed is to establish the pathways to meet the vision. These pathways could include the use of both legal instruments and information. But we also have to give the right price signals to producers and consumers. This is why a green tax reform is necessary, one that gradually shifts away taxes from labour and investments towards taxes on pollution and the inefficient use of materials and energy.

We also need a smarter GDP, going beyond today’s measure to one in which the good things count positively and the bad things count negatively. However, it’s important to keep sight of the fact that redesigning consumption and production is a challenge that requires all actors to take responsibility and make it happen. Many large companies have already realised that sustainable, low carbon production generates more profit, helps resource security and is better for the environment. Consumers across Europe are also increasingly showing their willingness to move towards more sustainable and low carbon consumption, but they need the right information and the right price signals.

Good ideas and open minds, on a political, business and individual level, are needed to ensure the sustainable, low carbon society becomes a reality.