Al Gore on Climate Change

Following Monkton's two pieces the Sunday Telegraph has Al Gore this week. Obviously Al hasn't actually understood what the Stern Review actually revealed (rather than what is said in the executive summary).

So let's explore its     conclusions: the report suggests that it will cost more to allow     global warming to continue unabated than it will to begin to take     thoughtful actions now. In other words, the impact on living     standards could be quite small, if rational, thoughtful policies     were put into place and if government were to work with industry to     exploit the economic opportunities rather than allow global warming     to run amok.

Well, for that to be true Stern had to take the worst outcome of the 40 SRES scenarios, add in some feedbacks, use a very low discount rate, insist that the costs of mitigation were very low (one fifth of  what the UN thinks likely) and generally fit the evidence to his theory.

And using his very own logic we can point to other actions that should be taken. The A2 family of scenarios (which is what Stern used) uses a model of the world where we persist in having regional economies. This contributes to slow growth in global GDP and such slow growth contributes to population growth (to 15 billion in 2100). We also see many poor countries staying on the wrong side of the environmental Kuznets Curve as a result of their poverty (for example, last week's report on forests: everyone richer than Chile, at GDP per capita of $4,600 or so, is seeing forests grow).

Now, other scenarios exist, such as the A1 family. These suppose a great degree of globalization, more emphasis on market solutions to problems, and thus much greater associated economic growth.

Now, the logic of the Stern Review is that we should indeed care for the wealth of our descendants (something I'm fine with for sure). In the A2 family global GDP is around $250 trillion in 2100 spread over 15 billion people. In the A1 it is $550 trillion spread over 7 billion. So, if we are indeed to care for the wealth of our descendants, we should be attempting to push the world in the A1 direction, yes? Not the A2?

So, as the A1 direction will make our descendants four times richer than the A2, we should right now, under the logic of the Stern Review, be calling for more markets, more globalization, yes? Unlike, say, Caroline Lucas who would have us retreat even from the limited amount of global trade in the A2 family.

The joy of moves towards A1 include the fact that this will not require any sacrifices from us at all: on the contrary, they will make us richer as well as our descendants. Truly, a no regrets policy of the type that the Greens continually tell us we should adopt.

It's also true that we can have mitigation policies as well as A1 if we should wish: but if we are to have, as the Stern Review insists, care for the future wealth of humanity at the core of our response to climate change, then before we even start talking about them we need to get the basic direction of the economy right.

Globalization for Gaia!