"We're risking the planet"

On the left is economist Nicholas Stern, who headed the Stern Review on Climate Change and came to Seattle last night to promote The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity.

Some highlights:

1. The two big issues of this century are global poverty and climate change.
2. Most climate change impacts will come because of water: floods, droughts, snowpack, sea level rise, etc.
3. The basic economic mistake from the go-slow crowd (e.g., William Nordhaus) is failing to recognize the magnitude of the risk involved: with Business As Usual there's a 50% chance of a 5 degree C temperature increase (over 1990 levels) by 2100... that would mean no snow in the Himalayas and make much of southern Europe look like the Sahara Desert.
4. To reduce that risk from 50% to 3% would require cutting global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 50% below 1990 levels by 2050, which would entail cuts of 80% in Europe and 90% in the U.S. The world could do that at a total cost of 1-2% of world GDP per year.
   
5. Involving the developing world is key because 8 of the 9 billion people who will be on the planet in 2050 will live in the developing world; Stern favors cap-and-trade over carbon taxes because it provides a political mechanism for financial flows between countries.
6. "In a world of perfect certainty, these two things [carbon taxes and cap-and-trade] would be more or less equivalent."
   
7. He argued for building "a structure where people see that they can all gain." Like any good economist, he's looking for a Pareto improvement over our current situation!
8. If we're looking for 80-90% cuts relative to 1990 levels by 2050, then it's sobering that 2020 is halfway between 1990 and 2050 and the most ambitious plan that anyone is talking about aims for a 7% cut relative to 1990 by 2020.
9. The policy is pretty straightforward, it's the political will that's lacking.
10. Best joke: "Two planets pass near each other, and one says 'You're not looking so good.' The second planet says 'Yes, I've got humans' and the first planet replies 'Don't worry, they won't last long.'" Honorable mention: "The best way I know to influence politics is rational argument." :)