Here's an abstract of the article, written by professor of environmental economics Thomas Sterner (whose bio you may find here):
"A number of features set climate change apart from most environmental problems: It spans several generations forcing us to think in new ways about intergenerational fairness. Even more importantly, it involves a delicate problem of coordination between countries and other agents at a truly global scale. As long as it is very profitable to use fossil fuels, policy coordination must include basically all major economies. The costs are sufficiently sizeable to make it important that the policy instruments chosen encourage efficiency in abatement. Ultimately this means striving towards a single market for carbon. The importance of getting near-universal adhesion to a treaty makes fairness and procedure important but we know how difficult it is to build a truly global agreement. Some people, both environmentalists and business leaders see green growth as the magic bullet: we should stop talking about who gets to use fossil fuels and instead focus on who will lead us into the green valleys of the future and there reap all the benefits of being first. This sounds good but who is going to stop laggards from simply continuing to burn coal? This paper discusses the necessary ingredients for a long run Global Climate Strategy. At the end we will dwell on the “short run” issue of what policies to pursue in the mean time. As we wait for the final (and maybe elusive) Worldwide treaty, we must have a policy that makes sense and in fact is not only compatible with, but hopefully facilitates the development of this worldwide agreement! The last section will focus on what forms of “green growth” strategy are reasonable for this intermediate period that we are in and which may be end up being more long than short."
Read the full article here.
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