The Stern Review – released in October 2006 by the British Government – is generally considered the most authoritative source on the economics of climate change. Among other things, it concludes that the cost of reducing global emissions is significantly less than the probable costs associated with letting climate change continue on its present course. Now, Australia has released a similar assessment, in the form of the Garnaut Climate Change Review.
Only the interim report is available so far, but it’s likely to make interesting reading for Canadians concerned about climate change. In many ways, the Canadian economy is more similar to that of Australia than it is to that of England. As such, this report may offer some especially useful insights.
P.S. I have some notes from a lecture Stern gave in Oxford.
One section of the executive summary is quite similar to a recent blog post of mine:
“Australia can contribute to the development of clear international understandings on the four components of a successful framework for global mitigation: setting the right global objectives for reduction of the risk of dangerous climate change; converting this into a goal for stabilisation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a specified level; calculating the amount of additional emissions that can be emitted into the atmosphere over a specified number of years if stabilisation of atmospheric concentrations is to be achieved at the desired level; and developing principles for allocating a limited global emissions budget among countries.”
Emily sent me a link to a video of Stern’s talk.
Green.view
Money meets mouth
Feb 25th 2008
From Economist.com
How green is Australia prepared to get?
IT SHOULD have been a triumph for Australia’s green-tinted new government. On coming to power last year, it asked Ross Garnaut, an eminent local economist, to help shape its approach to global warming, akin to the help Nicholas Stern, a British economist, gave his government in 2006. At the end of last week, Mr Garnaut released 63 pages of interim findings. But the first instalment of what journalists are calling “Australia’s Stern Report” is causing the government some embarrassment.
Mr Garnaut argues that Australia is both unusually vulnerable to climate change, and unusually well-equipped to respond to it. Already uncomfortably hot and dry, Australia will struggle to cope with hotter and drier conditions. It is also uncomfortably close to poor countries that will probably cope even worse with changing weather and rising sea levels, such as Indonesia and the Pacific islands.
At the same time, it has copious quantities of clean fuels such as uranium and natural gas to use or export, and lots of sunshine and wind to harness for clean energy. All this, needless to say, suggests that Australian politicians should find it easier than their counterparts elsewhere in the rich world to tackle climate change, and they should push for as tough a global response as possible…
The Even Sterner Review
Australia’s pivotal Garnaut climate report to back 100 percent permit auctions
GARNAUT REVIEW RELEASES DRAFT REPORT (PDF)
“Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra, Professor Ross Garnaut said that by 2050, unmitigated climate change on middle of the road outcomes would mean major declines in agricultural production across much of the country, including a 50 per cent reduction in irrigated agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin. By 2100, irrigated agriculture in the Murray Darling Basin would decline by 92 per cent.
Early economic modelling results of readily measurable unmitigated climate change for middle of the road outcomes on temperatures and decline in rainfall – indicate that climate change would wipe off around 4.8 per cent of Australia’s projected GDP, around 5.4 per cent of projected household consumption, and 7.8 per cent from real wages by 2100.”
Major climate change economics study released
July 6, 2008 10:16 PM
The draft Garnaut Climate Change Review was released last Friday. This is the most comprehensive look so far at the economic implications of climate change and emissions trading for a developed country (Australia). Essential (but weighty) reading for those interested in the economics of the issue, a useful localisation of Stern (2006).
The Garnaut Climate Change Review
Final Report
Introduction and Synopsis of key points (PDF, 119kb)