Sunday Forum: Why fight climate change?
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Representatives from 192 countries are meeting in Copenhagen to discuss climate change. What they accomplish -- or not -- will have profound effects on global economic, political and security relations.
Although vocal skeptics claim otherwise, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the vast majority of scientists have reached two conclusions: that the world's climate is warming, and that human behavior is a major contributor to this change.
There is debate on the pace of change in future years, but it is clear that even small rises in temperature and sea levels will affect every country in the world. Effects include people migrating in search of water and arable land, the extinction of plants and animals, the flooding of coastal areas and declines in health.
The countries of the world need to make binding commitments to address this problem for economic, practical and ethical reasons.
Many in the business community realize that an agreement to reduce carbon emissions is in their economic self-interest. Business hates uncertainty and failure to reach an agreement means further uncertainty.
Companies are not going to invest in new technologies before they know what incentives and rewards apply. Similarly, they will be reluctant to change their ways of doing business until they know what penalties will apply.
Individually and collectively through 3C (Combat Climate Change) and other initiatives, leading companies from around the world, including Citigroup, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, Lufthansa and Unilever, as well as China's CNOOC oil company and Russia's Gazprom, are lobbying governments to make commitments that reduce these uncertainties by establishing a clear legal and regulatory framework.
Committing resources to address climate change serves practical purposes, too. Although "green jobs" may be a significant side effect, committing to reducing global warming almost certainly will carry a price tag for companies and households. But as a society, we make this kind of trade-off every day.
Few of us would think repealing child labor laws to be progress, and most of us prefer to have a Food and Drug Administration around to evaluate the safety of pharmaceutical products. Our economy would grow more quickly without these and numerous other regulations, but for a variety of reasons we accept lower economic growth to achieve other societal objectives. So it should be with paying for climate change.
Few of us would prefer a return to Dickensian-era capitalism. Some things are simply worth paying for because they are worth doing.
Finally, committing to dealing with climate change is the ethical thing to do. Personal responsibility is a principle advocated by the political left and right. That is, individuals are accountable for their actions, receiving credit when successful and accepting blame for mistakes. We expect steroid-using athletes to take responsibility for their actions, and we demand bankers be held accountable for the role their industry played in the economic crisis.
Most of the responsibility for a changing climate falls on the shoulders of the United States, Europe and the rest of the developed world. Our increased wealth over the past two centuries is in large part a result of economic development that did not always take the best care of the environment.
True, China, India and other rising economic powers comprise an ever-larger slice of the climate-change pie. But those countries with the greatest cumulative impact on the climate, including the United States, should take more substantive steps to clean up the mess they made. It is the fair thing to do.
First Published December 13, 2009 12:00 am
