From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

5 THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM CLIMATE CHANGEtobacco and fast food industries, for failing to anticipate regulationof emissions. 238A dwindling band of economists still question whether the benefitsjustify the costs in terms of foregone growth and poverty reduction,taking the view that future costs and harm are much less importantthan current costs. 239 (This view ignores the possibility or impact ofirreversible damage that cannot be meaningfully costed). The SternReport effectively countered such arguments. Progress has also beenhampered by the intellectual gulf between the natural scientists whohave so far dominated the climate change debate and the social scientistswho lead discussions on development. The two academic tribes speakdifferent languages, and so have struggled to build a common front.Technology is bound to play a central role in the transition to alow-carbon economy that drastically reduces reliance on fossil fuelsfor transport, agriculture, and energy production. Technology is seenby some as a form of ‘get out of jail free’ card that will allow both richand poor countries to keep growing their market economies whilesimultaneously achieving the reductions in carbon emissions needed toavoid catastrophic climate change. But is this techno-optimism justified?One possibility is a new technology that transforms the world’sreliance on carbon – for example, clean nuclear fusion that producescarbon-free energy. Nothing of that kind appears imminent, however(scientists have been trying to tame fusion for some 50 years, with littlesuccess), and even were such a technology to be discovered, it wouldtake decades to commercialise and disseminate.With the global economygrowing, and carbon emissions rising, the world cannot afford to waitany longer for such a painless technological fix to the problem.Existing technology could in theory buy us some time, but only ifthe most advanced, cleanest techniques were rapidly to spread to allcountries. If the whole world was able rapidly to become as carbonefficient (in terms of tonnes of carbon per unit GDP) as the moreefficient, but not exceptional, developed countries (Germany, Italy,Japan, UK, Switzerland), global carbon emissions would fall by some43 per cent. That, together with existing technological trends (globalcarbon efficiency has improved by about 1.6 per cent per annum since1975), would buy us about ten extra years in which to find a technologicaland development pathway that would allow us to cut global419