Transcript Presentation

Comments on “Climate
Change and India”
Jessica Seddon Wallack
Director, Centre for Development Finance
3 Points
 Uncertain, yes, but science looks worse
than in portrayed in the paper.
 Thinking about “now vs later,” and
“growth vs. emissions limits” in this
context adds to that case for a familiar
(economic) reform agenda.
 CO2 is just half of climate change; and
options for the other climate changers
look very familiar…
The Sky Might Be Falling
 Committed warming > observed warming.
 Distribution of climate sensitivity parameter has a
fat upper tail.
 Changes linked to peak CO2 levels are irreversible.
 Possible near(ish) “tipping points” that could
accelerate climate change.
 Generally, scientific evidence seems to be looking
worse every month.
Temp increases look more
damaging.
Source: Smith et al (2009), PNAS
How to Assess Action/Inaction in Light
of (Dismal) Science?
 Potential for disaster means rational to do
something about truncating the “fat tail” of
disastrous outcomes. [Weitzman (2008)]
 Decision theory approach: Now vs later depends on
how much we can learn while waiting vs the
potential of increasing costs. Act now if potential for
hazards to increase too much. [Summers and
Zeckhauser (2009)]
Implications
 Invest in reducing the “fat tail”
 Probably need more than growth for adaptability.
 Another argument for getting infrastructure, public
delivery, etc. right.
 Do focus on mitigation
 Look at domestic actions with co-benefits: reform fuel
subsidies, IP rights and technology diffusion, energy
efficiency, etc.
 Unilateral CO2 commitments? Maybe some variant….
 Consider possibility of demonstration effect in
international arena.
Offer Energy Efficiency
Commitments?
Source: World Development Indicators
Address The Other
Climate Changers
 The other half of global warming: methane, halocarbons,
tropospheric ozone, black/brown carbon.
 BC: 20-50% of effect of CO2 + accelerated glacial melting.
 Ozone: 20% of effect of CO2
 Comparison depends on the time-frame: in the medium
run, these have 100s to 1000s x the warming potential of
CO2
 What’s different about these
 Shorter lifetime in the atmosphere (days to decades)
 More local (BC and ozone)
 Tangible economic and development co-benefits from
emissions reduction (health, agricultural productivity,
quality of life)
Reducing BC and Ozone
 Help households move past traditional biomass based
cooking, heating technologies => reduce BC, CO,
methane.
 OK: LPG?
 Better: Improved biomass stoves, espw/ processed fuel.
 Reduce vehicular emissions => less NOx
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Target new fleets, encourage fleet turnover
Crack down on adulteration
Revisit diesel subsidies (or require filters)
Public transport > private transport
Finally get around to addressing shipping and multimodal
transport issues.
Starts to look like the same
list of economic reform
issues….