Environment & Urbanization

World leading environmental and urban studies journal

Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate Change

Author(s): 
Nicholas Stern

Publisher: 
MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England

Pages: 
406

Year: 
2015

Based upon the Lionel Robbins Lectures given by Nicholas Stern in 2012, this book’s core mantra is to act now rather than later in tackling climate change. In Why Are We Waiting? Nicholas Stern highlights that not only are the risks and costs of climate change potentially colossal, but they are worse than originally set out in the Stern Review of 2006, and our action to date has been far too slow. He also identifies a critical period of structural change when much of the world’s energy system will be created or renewed. Stern asserts that this transformation is a specific opportunity to also achieve the key actions necessary to hold to a 2°C increase in temperature. Based upon this premise, Stern emphasizes the benefits of a low-carbon economy, what it would look like and how we might achieve it. He also goes more deeply into ethics and moral philosophy surrounding how we value the future (pages xiii–xviii).

This book is structured in three parts and despite a strong focus on economics it endeavours to be accessible to a wider audience (page xi). Part I looks at our choice between peril and prosperity in the world. Chapter 1 forms the root of the following chapters by setting forth the science of climate change and how it forms the foundation for understanding and responding to climate change issues and challenges. In particular, it explores how science determines the economics, ethics and politics of the choices we face in managing climate change risks. Chapter 2 subsequently provides an analysis of possible transitions to a low-carbon economy and society to dramatically reduce these risks, and looks at what would drive such transitions. Stern believes that both a failure to appreciate the risks of climate change and a limited and narrow understanding of such alternative, low-carbon paths are currently major obstacles to action. Thus he addresses these by providing a thorough analysis of not only the risks of climate change (in Chapter 1), but also possible transitions to building a new energy-industrial revolution (in Chapter 2).

Part II focuses on the necessary analytical and policy tools and frameworks to cultivate rapid and radical change to tackle climate change. According to Stern this assembly of policy, economic, and ethical arguments creates a sound basis for strong climate change action. Chapter 3 begins at the domestic policy level and traces economic history and theory to uncover lessons for the structural change needed for a transition to a low-carbon economy. It also recognizes the strong links among mitigation, adaptation and development as well as the important roles to be played by government and businesses. Chapter 4 evaluates how integrated assessments models (IAMs), which project the economic impacts of climate change, often largely underestimate damage and risks. Stern urges therefore not only for a new generation of models but also a wiser use of these economic models in relation to policy. Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the underlying values and ethics that responses to climate change must consider. Chapter 5 discusses intertemporal values and valuations, or “discounting”, as a key ethical debate concerning climate change action within public economics. It also identifies how analytical errors herein contribute to arguments against the strong and urgent action to climate change that Stern promotes (pages 151–152). Chapter 6 reaches beyond standard ethical approaches in economics to consider the broader ethical and moral issues that inform policy analysis in climate change (page xxxiii).

Part III takes a global view of climate change policy and focuses on the relationship between actions at the national and global scale. Chapter 7 aims to portray the nature and scale of climate change action around the world and also highlight what significant achievements can be made without a formal international agreement (page 212). Chapter 8 uses the lessons in Chapter 7 to show how a transition to a low-carbon economy may be more effectively fostered through an evolution of international climate change institutions and negotiations. Furthermore, within this context, Stern describes how countries can better cooperate to scale up climate actions. Chapter 9 then provides an approach to international equity to underpin the framework for climate governance that Stern outlines in Chapter 8 (page 213).

To conclude, Chapter 10 broadens the scope of previous chapters to explore why current actions to tackle climate change are not at the scale or speed that we need. By looking at lessons from historical social advances, politics and psychology, Stern sets out how the barriers to climate action that he identifies may be overcome. Overall the transition to a low-carbon economy that Stern details is propelled by the urgency of climate action in light of immense potential risks. Nevertheless Stern is a voice of hope as he advocates that such a transition could bring tremendous opportunities and prospects for a better future (page xxxv).

 

Book note prepared by Hannah Keren Lee

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