Kevin Wang / Edge columnist
Climate change has remained a large and prominent issue for quite some time now, with scientists from all over the world trying to find ways to mitigate the issue. The cause of climate change is mainly linked to the emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap heat within in earth’s atmosphere, raising global temperatures. This has caused a variety of issues around the world such as melting glaciers which raise sea levels, increasing the chance of a forest fire, and causing droughts.
Methods of reducing or getting rid of climate change usually revolve around the idea of limiting the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. The current global solution to climate change is the 2015 Paris Agreement. The main goal of the agreement is to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Theoretically, if we go past this threshold, things will seriously start turning sideways.
The way the agreement works is simple. Each government signed would set a goal to lower the amount of greenhouse gas emissions they produce. After five years each country would set a new goal all the way up to 2030. This is mainly done by applying taxes on greenhouse gas emissions and subsidies for green products, such as electric vehicles. Because of its international effect, most politicians applaud the Paris agreement as a big accomplishment and the key to solving climate change.
However, the Paris Agreement is not the first of its kind. Its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, was arguably successful and has made very little impact on rising temperatures. Although the Paris Agreement improves on the Kyoto Protocol, it is still highly uncertain how much a difference the agreement would make. The biggest problem with climate change is that Earth’s climate is unpredictable. Trying to predict the climate one year into the future is already hard enough, so imagine how difficult it would be to predict Earth’s climate in the year 2100. The further you project into the future, the more inaccurate your predictions are, with the number of errors only growing exponentially. This includes predictions of the earth’s climate as well as how severe those changes may be. For the Paris Agreement, this means a lot of mixed results when trying to predict how impactful the agreement will be. Some predict the agreement will have a high impact and others predict a very negligible impact. In addition to its uncertain effectiveness, the Paris Agreement is also extremely costly, forcing many to speculate whether the agreement is the right move and to seek alternative solutions.
One alternate solution comes from the Copenhagen Consensus, a think tank located in Denmark which takes an economic standpoint on world issues. They propose that rather than limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, we should focus our energy on the research and development on new greener technologies. This idea revolves around reaching “peak carbon emissions” as soon as possible and innovating toward more effective and cheaper technology as fast as we can. This isn’t to say the Paris Agreement is bad, it’s all about the right place at the right time. Right now, we don’t have the technology to easily support the agreement. Instead, the agreement is only slowing us down, as green policies increase the cost of production. In order to get more people to become greener, we must first create greener products that are cheaper than the current standard. In order to get greener products as soon as possible, we must put as much energy and funding as we can into research and design. This means we have to stop funding green policies (for now) and rapidly increase investment into new technologies. Gradually, greener and cheaper alternatives will be adopted, such as electric vehicles or renewable energies.
The solution proposed by the Copenhagen Consensus as be floating around for some time now but has remained relatively unnoticed by major media corporations and politicians. It’s a unique and interesting idea, a perspective on climate change that hasn’t really been considered. Seeing that the current strategies we’ve been implementing since 1992 have not yet shown great impact, it may be time we investigate experiment alternative solutions.
Economics of climate change innovation | Bjørn Lomborg
Global Warming of 1.5 ºC
The Paris Agreement
Paris Agreement Wikipedia
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
Copenhagen Consensus Wikipedia
Was Kyoto climate deal a success? Figures reveal mixed results
A Degree of Concern: Why Global Temperatures Matter
2100 Global Warming Projections
Paris climate promises will reduce temperatures by just 0.05°C in 2100
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Climate change is real, but Paris treaty won’t fix it