Introduction
Scientific research provides evidence of the earth’s climate change as a result of human economic activity especially the ones that involve the combustion of fossil fuels to produce energy for domestic and industrial use. This challenge requires an effective worldwide response which can only be obtained through a clear understanding of the politics and economics of climate change with the identification of means and ways of minimizing mounting human costs.
This should be done right now instead of waiting to see our lives being overrun by the rapid advancement of adversities. The most important question is not whether nations can afford the cost and the risks incurred in reducing the emissions, but whether they can fail to act on the problem of emissions by way of uniting the whole world in addressing this threat to the well being of human beings, natural vegetations and other living organisms in future. (Sterk, 2008 pp12 par1-3)
Politics and economics of climate change
The world requires a reasonable and well-argued approach to deal with the problem of negative climate change and luckily Nick Stern together with his team has provided a solution through what has come to be known as stern review which has provided an economic analysis of issues associated with a change of climate. The review states convincingly that there would be many benefits compared to costs if there is an international action in the mitigation of climate change.
Today, there is scientific evidence to prove global warming and its effects are overwhelming but surprisingly some commentators, as well as lobby groups, are working hard to oppose actions to offset the effects basing their argument on the ground of competitiveness and economic benefits. (Sterk, 2008 pp13-14)
The USA, china as well as major polluters in the world have failed to sign a treaty for international emissions pollution control and the main reason is that even when nations enter treaties with others, they do so to help themselves and not the partner as it happened in 1987 when the U.S.A was pushing hard for Montreal protocol in restriction of ozone-depleting chemicals. USA accepted protocol only after the cost-benefit analysis was able to convince President Reagan that the benefits would be more than losses because the ban on the chemicals would not be burdensome for most USA companies.
However, there was strong resistance to the protocol from the majority of the developing countries which demanded a huge side payment from the developed countries which they were given. Side payments are very common and they refer to the payments or exceptions arrangements that are made whenever a group of nations are in need of cooperation of another country in an area of global relations and that country is not gaining in the proposed agreement.
China so far is the greatest world’s problem as far as climate change is concerned and therefore other rich nations must be willing to offer a special inducement to this nation in order to win its co-operation in observing control over ozone-depleting chemicals. (Sterk, 2008 pp15-16)
The other important issue is that even though the whole world would benefit from an emissions control agreement some countries would incur more costs than others as a result of global warming and therefore such countries would not be willing to spend a lot in control for a little return. It is, therefore, necessary for the world to persuade the U.S.A to accept that it would gain and not lose from the deal for an effective agreement to be possible to rescue china which will suffer most from climate change and also incur the greatest cost in controlling emissions.
In reality, India should be the one pushing for measures on climate change, but again it stands to significantly lose by adopting the standards which is a contradiction that can only be solved through monetary compensation of which it has little power in bargaining since it cannot be compensated more than the rich nations are benefitting. It means India requires considering adaptive actions for the time being and in the future take mitigating actions. (Harwich, 2008 pp27 par2-4).
The fact that there has been a shift in the bulk of manufacturing from west to Asia because of lower cost has partly increased china’s emissions as well as in other parts and therefore china cannot be blamed wholly on emissions since part of it is for the goods produced meant for the west. The question of who should be accounted for being responsible leads to the classification of emissions under the ones caused by consumers for example we have more cars in the west which contribute to this sort of emission. The other classification is under industrial emissions for example the heavy china’s industries. (Harwich, 2008 pp 25-26).
Conclusion
International action on climate change demands the establishment of an overhauled system to include incentives as well as punitive measures to encourage global agreement on control of emissions without any state feeling sidelined on economic and competitive grounds. Every government should ensure its state recycles more than 80% of its waste as it happens in Switzerland. The punitive charges should be collected at the source of emission both from the manufacturer and from the consumer where the amount of taxes should be proportional to the number of goods produced or bought at a given time. (Harwich, 2008 pp 23-24).
References
Harwich P. (2008): International trade with implications for global climate policy: Environmental science and technology, pp. 23-27.
Sterk W. (2008): New horizons for global climate policy: Climate policy, pp. 2-16.