Conclusion
101. The Stern Review does a very thorough and authoritative
job, based on recent science, of setting out the risks of the
very dangerous consequences that might flow from higher stocks
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their associated rises
in global temperatures. Taking these risks into account, and treating
the future generations who would be most subject to those risks
as being of equal importance as those alive today, the Review
makes a very strong case for incurring costs now in order to avert
disaster in years to come.
102. At the same time, the Stern Review highlights
what is perhaps the central problem of tackling climate change:
the need to take profound action before the more serious effects
of global warming have begun to be felt. Because of the time-lag
between emitting greenhouse gases—especially CO2—and
experiencing their ultimate effects, it means that today's generation
will be asked to make sacrifices, change habits, and face higher
costs of carbon-intensive activities, in order principally to
benefit future generations. To a considerable extent, given the
unequal nature both of current per capita emissions and long-term
vulnerability to climate change, it also means those in the UK
and other Western countries taking bigger actions in the interests
of people in poorer countries. All this means that reducing emissions
according to the trajectories suggested by Stern will not just
be practically but—perhaps an even bigger
problem—politically very challenging.
103. On the practical challenge, the Government
can rightly point to a variety of activities which fall within
the main policy areas recommended by Stern. But what is
required now is for the Government seriously to accelerate its
policies, to begin to achieve the kind of steep cuts in emissions
Stern demonstrates are necessary. For this reason, we were very
disappointed in this year's Pre-Budget Report. The PBR was a grossly
inadequate response to the hardening evidence as to the increasing
risks of major and irreversible impacts of climate change. Coming
in the wake of the Stern Review, the PBR's lack of boldness raises
major doubts as to the Treasury's seriousness about implementing
Stern's recommendations in domestic policy. However, Pre-Budget
2006 was simply the first major opportunity for the Government
to implement the conclusions of the Stern Review. There are many
others to come, beginning with Budget 2007, the Climate Change
Bill and the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review. We look
forward to seeing an appropriate response to Stern from the Government
in its forthcoming fiscal policy, legislation, and, potentially,
machinery of government changes.
104. Beyond this, there is still the political
challenge. Stern emphasises the continued prospects for economic
growth even with aggressive mitigation efforts, and the added
benefits such efforts would bring in terms of accelerated technological
development and other improvements, for instance in air quality.
Stern also highlights the trillions of dollars that it has been
estimated will need to be spent on energy supplies to ensure they
meet global demand over the next decades, illustrating the fact
that much of the policy response to climate change would need
to take place anyway, as we developed alternative fuels and technologies.[116]
These messages ought to be widely publicised in order to boost
public support. Most importantly, however, there needs
to be more and better informed discussion of the science of climate
change. The Government needs to do more with the Stern Review
in this respect, using it as a springboard to raise levels of
public discussion about the risks and impacts of global warming
and what needs to be done to mitigate them.
105. If there is one key conclusion to draw from
the Stern Review it is that we today are living at an important
moment: we still have a limited window of opportunity to prevent
greenhouse gases growing to dangerous levels. As Stern underlines,
once we overshoot a target stock of greenhouse gases it will be
very difficult and may be a very slow process to reduce it again.
Thus if we fail to act swiftly enough, it may be impossible to
reduce greenhouse gases to safer levels for decades or centuries
to come—during which time the risks of major irreversible
impacts will grow ever larger. But Stern's accompanying argument
is that the sooner the world begins to cut its emissions, the
easier and less costly mitigation will become. Both conclusions
need to be widely discussed.
116 Stern Review, p 370 Back
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