World cannot prosper without cutting carbon emissions, says Climate Group

The world cannot prosper without cutting emissions, an economic expert has warned as he urged countries to use plans for tackling climate change to attract investment.

Over the next few months countries are submitting their “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDC) outlining action they plan to take on climate change, ahead of UN talks in Paris at the end of the year to secure a new global deal on the issue.

Instead of putting forward plans for the least effort they thought they could get away with, countries should treat their pledges as an “investment prospectus” to attract international investors to their economy, Climate Group chief executive Mark Kenber said.

The plans should set out the policies governments are going to put in place and the investment needed to attract funding, which will go to the places in the world that have the most stable policy regimes, he suggested.

Europe has formally submitted its plans, including a commitment to cut emissions by “at least” 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, which Kenber said set a “clear long-term direction for European businesses” on the need to switch to a low carbon economy.

“Although we would have liked to see a more ambitious target backed by equally robust renewables and energy efficiency goals, the fact that the target is backed by the Emissions Trading Scheme, the Energy Union package and a raft of other policies mean that business can be under no illusion about the direction of travel,” he said.

The Climate Group works with business and governments on the shift to a low carbon economy, and Kenber issued a stark warning on the choice for the world between a high carbon and low carbon future.

“There is no prosperous high carbon economy. We haven’t got a choice between a prosperous low carbon economy or a prosperous high carbon economy.”

The world faced a “pretty daunting world of high carbon”, with temperatures rising by 4C or 5C causing economic disruption, or low carbon prosperity, he said.

Previous economic studies had suggested the losses associated with tackling climate change were lower than not taking action, but more recent evidence suggested that moving to a low carbon economy presented “real gains”.

And the world already has much of the technology and policies it needs to tackle the problem, he said.

In the UK political leaders have signalled their commitment to tackling climate change, but Kenber raised concerns that as as a country Britain was not good at supporting things over the long term.

“We have offshore wind resources the envy of the world, and we just need to say this is a long game, let’s invest in it, lets make sure we’re creating the skills in the country to service that industry.

“And then we have an export opportunity both of the skills and engineering capacity and the technology itself that will be the envy of the world and will drive growth, but it does require government support in the short term,” he urged.

Governments did not have to pick winners, he said, but did need to set the direction of travel and make sure the incentives all point in that direction.

He said the world was capable of avoiding “catastrophic” climate change, although there would be impacts of rising temperatures.

But the shift to a low carbon economy is “not only going to stop climate change it’s going to present new growth and prosperity opportunities, which is also what we need with 10bn people on the planet in our lifetimes,” he said.