A new climate economy
JOHANNESBURG, 24 September 2013 (IRIN) - For some years the idea of a "green economy" that would be less dependent on fossil fuels and low on harmful greenhouse gas emissions has been doing the rounds at the UN climate change talks, but reception to the idea has ranged from lukewarm to hostile.
On 24 September another idea for a cleaner economy, the "New Climate Economy Project", was announced in New York. This time, some of the world's leading economists have signed up, including Lord Nicholas Stern, the Vice-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. He is the author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, produced for the British government in 2006, the first study to put a price tag on the cost of inaction on climate change.
The Project is a year-long research effort into the economies of a few countries that could include China, India, the US and the European Union, to "examine how strategic action on climate change affects their core economic and political priorities,"said Måns Nilsson, deputy director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, who is among the experts involved in the project.
The research has been commissioned by a group of seven countries - Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Korea, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Recommendations and lessons will be drawn from the research that other countries could use or apply.
Read more: http://www.irinnews.org/report/98818/a-new-climate-economy
