Comments on “Climate Change and India”

Comments on “Climate Change and India” Jessica Seddon Wallack Director, Centre for Development Finance

3 Points • Uncertain, yes, but science looks worse than in portrayed in the paper. • Thinking about “now vs later,” and “growth vs. emissions limits” in this context adds to that case for a familiar (economic) reform agenda. • CO2 is just half of climate change; and options for the other climate changers look very familiar…

The Sky Might Be Falling • Committed warming > observed warming. • Distribution of climate sensitivity parameter has a fat upper tail. • Changes linked to peak CO2 levels are irreversible. • Possible near(ish) “tipping points” that could accelerate climate change. • Generally, scientific evidence seems to be looking worse every month.

Temp increases look more damaging. Source: Smith et al (2009), PNAS

How to Assess Action/Inaction in Light of (Dismal) Science? • Potential for disaster means rational to do something about truncating the “fat tail” of disastrous outcomes. [Weitzman (2008)] • Decision theory approach: Now vs later depends on how much we can learn while waiting vs the potential of increasing costs. Act now if potential for hazards to increase too much. [Summers and Zeckhauser (2009)]

Implications • Invest in reducing the “fat tail” • Probably need more than growth for adaptability. • Another argument for getting infrastructure, public delivery, etc. right. • Do focus on mitigation • Look at domestic actions with co-benefits: reform fuel subsidies, IP rights and technology diffusion, energy efficiency, etc. • Unilateral CO2 commitments? Maybe some variant…. • Consider possibility of demonstration effect in international arena.

Offer Energy Efficiency Commitments? Source: World Development Indicators

Address The Other Climate Changers • The other half of global warming: methane, halocarbons, tropospheric ozone, black/brown carbon. • BC: 20-50% of effect of CO2 + accelerated glacial melting. • Ozone: 20% of effect of CO2 • Comparison depends on the time-frame: in the medium run, these have 100s to 1000s x the warming potential of CO2 • What’s different about these • Shorter lifetime in the atmosphere (days to decades) • More local (BC and ozone) • Tangible economic and development co-benefits from emissions reduction (health, agricultural productivity, quality of life)

Reducing BC and Ozone • Help households move past traditional biomass based cooking, heating technologies => reduce BC, CO, methane. • OK: LPG? • Better: Improved biomass stoves, espw/ processed fuel. • Reduce vehicular emissions => less NOx • Target new fleets, encourage fleet turnover • Crack down on adulteration • Revisit diesel subsidies (or require filters) • Public transport > private transport • Finally get around to addressing shipping and multimodal transport issues.

Starts to look like the same list of economic reform issues….

Comments on “Climate Change and India”