1 / 20

climate change and sustainable development

climate change and sustainable development. Julian Morris Vice President for Research, The Reason Foundation. Overview. What is “sustainable development”? What are the likely impacts of climate change? How to address climate change in a way that is consistent with sustainable development:

verne
Download Presentation

climate change and sustainable development

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. climate change and sustainable development Julian Morris Vice President for Research, The Reason Foundation

  2. Overview • What is “sustainable development”? • What are the likely impacts of climate change? • How to address climate change in a way that is consistent with sustainable development: • Addressing today’s problems first • Promoting economic development • A question of morality

  3. Sustainable Development is … • “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” • Brundtland Commission, 1997

  4. Likely Impacts of Climate Change

  5. Is cutting carbon emissions a sensible way to address climate change? Assumes: 1. IPCC SAR Median warming scenario 2. Kyoto restrictions applied until 2100 Source: Lomborg 2001

  6. Adapting to Change

  7. Overall, Wealthier is Healthier Data: World Bank

  8. Wealth and Access to Potable Water Data: World Bank

  9. Economic Growth Data: Angus Maddison

  10. Falling Proportion of Poor Source: Martin Wolf

  11. Technology, Trade and Health

  12. Improvements in Nutrition 1960 - 2000

  13. As GDP Rises, Deaths from Extreme Weather Events Fall Data: EM-DAT, World Bank

  14. => Rising Life Expectancy

  15. if we are really serious about reducing all these problems, our focus should not be on reducing climate change, or even, for the most part, on addressing the problems directly. instead, our focus should be onenabling economic development

  16. But with carbon control … • Resources will be diverted into lower-carbon technologies – and away from other technologies and wealth enhancing activities. • Carbon control legitimises the imposition of the very barriers that currently hold people in poor countries back! • So, people in the future will be less wealthy, will continue to suffer diseases, drought and other problems that would likely otherwise be solved.

  17. Indoor Air Pollution in India In 2001, more than two thirds of the Indian population relied on “biomass” fuels. Sources: Indian Council of Medical Research & Census of India 2001

  18. Annual Deaths from IAP (2000) Source: WHO

  19. Is it morally defensible to divert money, human effort and other resources away from real problems that exist today and from investments that might enable our descendants to adapt to a changing world?

  20. Contact me:julian.morris@reason.org

More Related