Economics of Environment

Economics of the Environment

If you have a shoe that is nearly getting torn would you rather wait to have it torn so that you can mend it or you would rather repair it before it gets worn out? You can choose to wait and have it torn and therefore end up using more money to mend it or you can mend it at the early stage and you are safe. This is the same as addressing effects of climate change.

Stopping global warming and protecting the earth’s climate has and is still a daunting nightmare. This has to be addressed with a lot f speed and urgency to enable us change ways in which we create and use energy and much more relating to our development and lifestyle pathways. This change is not free. We have already experienced resistance to paying for the first crucial steps along the road. The perception is that reaching for more ambitious mitigation targets and quicker reduction in emissions would translate to economic disaster.

The critical question we need to ask ourselves is whether the “go slow” recommendations are unjustified or justified. A number of economic analyses informed by recent scientific suggest that more ambitious targets and quicker reduction of emissions makes good economic sense. Despite the adverse effects of climate change, it has not as a consequence become impossible inexpensive to save the planet. We can still afford a sustainable future. The sad news about climate change relates to the cost of reluctance and inaction. As greenhouse gas emissions grow, it’s the cost of doing nothing that becomes unbearable, and not the cost of acting.

We cannot afford a little Climate Policy, half measures that would leave us all vulnerable to the immense risks of an increasingly destructive climate. We need a big initiative, a comprehensive global deal on protecting the earth’s climate by rapidly reducing emissions of green house gases.

This series will be trying to analyze the costs of inaction to climate change effects.

By Alphaxard Gitau Ndungu